July Poem by Aida Santos

for Sandra, the artist


July is a rainy month.


Yesterday I walked
through thigh-high flooded streets
the brownish waters
swirled garbage
around my trousered legs.
I felt with my feet:
manholes are dangerous
we were careful not to fall
into deep abyss, ugly
diggings. These men dig holes
and do not cover them decently.
A woman fell into a deep one
in a flash of an eye
there was a short-haired head
bobbing out of the unseen trap
and the other woman laughed
in tears, it was madness
of surprise and pain.


July is a rainy month.


Friends celebrate
their birthdays
and I will too, still in the season
of rains, flood and volcano eruptions.
I almost wept gazing at the boobtube:
dazed women with children
in evacuation centers
their existence hanging on a thread of hope
homes swept away by this strange lahar
pouring down the mouth of Mount Pinatubo
raging against the hail of storm.


Years from now, do not forget this July
the images of hard times
growing old, we must be impassioned
with memories of the past.