LIT ANGELS #39: For The Birds

with writing by Kimberley L. Phillips, Amalia Mora, Christopher Dosier, Daniel López, and art by Don Widmer. Edited by Francesca Lia Block

Don Widmer

Table of Contents

Shining Air / Aire brillante by Daniel López with art by Don Widmer

The Birds of Leavenworth by Kimberley L. Philips

No Accounting by Christopher Dosier

One Day We Might Move the Earth by Amalia Mora

Edited by Francesca Lia Block

Shining Air by Daniel López and Don Widmer

Shining Air is inspired by South American birds, myth, and storytelling.

Emerging Colombian writer Daniel López partnered with artist Don Widmer to create a series of five birds, whose stories are told through words and image. Daniel crafted his stories in Spanish and English, imagining how these birds were formed from the mind of Cuchavira (“shining air”), the rainbow god of the Muisca. To accompany Daniel’s stories, Don created an image of each bird using pulp.

Created in Chicago (USA) and Cali (Colombia), November/December 2025

Shining air / Aire brilliante by Daniel López

Diucón

Among branches, leaves, songs, and feathers, a story hides.

In the lands of South America, birds sing the story of rebirth.

Before he became protector of the sick, Cuchavira, radiant air, guardian of the rainbow, endured a mighty deluge. Of that pain, a single memory remains: a bird we call the Diucón.

Messenger of death and misfortune, he resembles a gray cloud that approaches and foretells evil as it touches your window.

His red gaze, like a devouring volcano, is – some say – the eye of evil itself.

But others insist that within that burning ember also dwells a different spark: the small fire of life, to which the ancients gave a name – Hope.

The elders say, since then, the Diucón flies alongside the shamans, carrying curses on its wings that awaken the unwary.

Thus began Cuchavira’s tragedy – a tragedy known only to those who have tasted the death of a love that never fully blossomed. And they, too, will recognize the desperate cry of the god who still longs for love's return.

Diucón
Entre ramas, hojas, cantos y plumajes, se esconde una historia.

En las tierras del sur del continente de América, los pájaros cuentan la historia de un renacer.

Cuchavira, aire resplandeciente, guardián del arcoíris, antes de velar por los enfermos,
atravesó un diluvio. De aquel dolor solo quedó un recuerdo: el que hoy llamamos Diucón.

Mensajero de muerte y de desgracias, nube gris que se acerca y presagia el mal al tocar tu ventana. Su mirada roja, como volcán que devora, es — dicen algunos — el ojo del mismo mal.

Pero otros aseguran que allí, en esa brasa encendida, habita también una chispa distinta: el pequeño fuego de la vida, al que los antiguos dieron nombre — Esperanza.

Cuentan los maestros que, desde entonces, los Diucón vuelan junto a los chamanes,
llevando entre sus alas las maldiciones que despiertan a los incautos.

La tragedia de Cuchavira empezaría, una tragedia que solo conoce quien probó la muerte de un amor que no terminó de madurar. Y esos también sabrán reconocer el canto desesperado de quien aún lo reclama de vuelta.


Crespín

Bitterness and quiet sorrow accompanied the gray rainbow, Cuchavira.

Weary of solitude, he uprooted trees and destroyed forests searching for a lost part of his soul. From the devastation, silence ensued, punctuated by Cuchavira’s groans.
He cried the name of the one his mind longed for.

From his plea came only an echo that twisted and reshaped the wind. Thus would the Crespín be born, bristling like the nerves of a cat.

Its plumage, woven from shadows, recalled the damp earth. Its yellow eyes strove not to lose love’s trace. It sang the name for which Cuchavira cried – “Cres… pin” – a plea from one who longs again for love but is condemned to search the silence in vain.

Since then, like a wandering natural force, it roams the forests and open fields of the American continent, like a sorrow that hides itself.

It does not build a nest; in another’s warmth it finds the place to cultivate its grief, leaving there a mortal offspring whose first song silences all others.

Wise ones say that it can be heard but not seen; that it seeks but also snatches. For humans and animals alike, whoever hears its song will know the loss of a loved one, as
Cuchavira once did.

When the bird and its song disappeared among the mountains, the world fell silent. Then Cuchavira, with hands and heart aching from weariness, sat down. The river carried away the harm.

The emptiness remained; within it, Cuchavira and his sorrow: no longer burning, now only flooding.