It is the time of the jacaranda
when streets are violet carpets
and venders call "Hay elotes! " in the early evening.
No reason to think this could not last forever
this interval
between burning buses and tortured death
this space in the calendar
when the earth breathes and every tree
shines with its own inner light.
When darkness comes we retreat behind walls.
We hear the staccato bursts of machine guns
muffled thumps of grenades
and interminable screams of sirens
as silent victims are carried down the Periferico
to Hospital Civil.
But then morning again.
Crystalline dew on grass and the privets,
a florescence of roses
splash of old fountains in gardens and a rooster's call.
Heedlessly it all returns, this sweet singular life,
the bougainvillea's bracts of burgundy and tangerine
and the copper flash in the beak of a crow
as he carries a spent cartridge
home to his hidden nest.
I This poem is a tribute to the author who is a poet and a writer and a teacher whose students could have been the missing 43, or on the burning buses or victims of the spent cartridge, but sees the light in the trees. Great poem.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Wow! What an eye-opener! Does this really happen in Mexico in this day and age?