Si no pueden volar

Si No Saben Volar
MAAS (Miguel Ángel Amortegui)
Acrylic on Canvas

This painting reflects the weight we carry when the world expects us to fly while never teaching us how. The figure sits grounded, painted in vibrant colours that clash with the heavy black below, caught between hope and exhaustion. The wings and halo hint at potential, yet the broken clock reminds us how time pressures us to become something before we are ready.

The Spanish phrase “Si no saben volar” — “If they don’t know how to fly” — becomes both a warning and a plea. It speaks to anyone who has felt judged for struggling, especially those whose lives have been shaped by conflict, displacement, or poverty.

Here the angel is human, fragile, and honest. It reminds us that not knowing how to fly is not a failure; it is a truth — and all truths deserve compassion.

Insipered on the poem of Oliverio Girondo: Me importa un pito.

“Me importa un pito” — Oliverio Girondo

Translated into English

I couldn’t care less whether women
have breasts like magnolias or like dried figs;
skin like a peach or like sandpaper.
I give absolutely zero importance
to whether they wake up with breath like a love potion
or breath that could kill insects.
I’m perfectly capable of tolerating
a nose that would win first prize
at a carrot competition;
but this — and on this I’m unbreakable —
I never forgive them, under any circumstances,
if they don’t know how to fly.
If they can’t fly, they’re wasting their time
trying to seduce me!

This — and nothing else —
was the reason I fell so madly
in love with María Luisa.
What did I care about her instalment-plan kisses
or her sulphurous bouts of jealousy?
What did I care about her webbed extremities
or her glances full of ominous forecasts?
María Luisa was a true feather!
At dawn she would fly from the bedroom to the kitchen,
she flew from the dining room to the pantry.
Flying, she prepared my bath, my shirt.
Flying, she did the shopping, the chores…
How impatiently I waited for her return, flying,
from some stroll around the neighbourhood!
Far away, lost among the clouds, a tiny pink dot.
“María Luisa! María Luisa!”… and seconds later,
she was already embracing me with her feather-legs
to carry me, flying, anywhere at all.

For kilometres of silence we would glide,
planning a caress
that brought us closer to paradise;
for entire hours we nested on a cloud,
like two angels, and suddenly,
in a spiral, in dead-leaf fall,
the emergency landing of a spasm.
What delight it is to have such a light woman…
even if she makes you see stars now and then!
What pleasure to spend the days among the clouds…
to spend the nights in a single flight!

After knowing an ethereal woman,
can an earthly woman offer any kind of attraction?
Surely there is no real difference
between living with a cow or with a woman
whose backside sits seventy-eight centimetres off the ground.
As for me, I’m completely incapable of understanding
the appeal of a pedestrian woman,
and no matter how hard I try to imagine it,
it’s impossible for me to conceive
that love could ever be made
in any way other than flying.

"Technique painting: Acrylic, Oil, Tempera, Chalk, Oil Pastels on Canvas and spray paint on canvas 40" by 32"