those proposed by Scribner, Papa had asked me to send, in large part because the publication was imminent, some sketches for the cover of The Old Man and the Sea. I had then received his congratulations on the speed with which I had sent the drawings, plus with "the right postage." And more congratulations, even more enthusiastically, when the chosen cover was reported as the best of the year in the United States, beating another 300,000.
Yet it hadn't been difficult to create that cover. I had only reproduced what I had seen that day with Papa, when we had looked at the ocean together. The fishing village on the bay of Cojimar and the blue of the sky so as to seem boundless and in that blue solitude somewhere, far away, there was the Old Man but you couldn't see him.
It was not so important to see with the eyes as to look with the heart. Looking up at the things of the spirit without losing sight of the reality here below. Look at the sky and the earth. Yes, here is the title for my book: Ho guardato il cielo e la terra.
"The River, the Lagoon and the Distant Island" was also a good title, I thought. But more suitable for a novel than for poetry. It would be the right title for our story, partner, for that story that they will never write, because no one would believe you: "Someone will think this and someone will think that and only you and I will know and we will be dead."
* I have looked at the sky and the earth.
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