Refuge Camp Poem by iulia de AltaParte

where society refugees and war refugees
collide in a murky camp built in solidarity and the blind fingers of fatality-

already you have crossed Europe with your heart gripped by the sky,
and your lids knitted at your swollen feet;

you walked umbrella palmed.

you slept covered in eyelashes,
cloud pillowed.

in a single minute,
you are a ghost and a hero,
cut in a labyrinth of blood and overdoses of dead ends-

you are alone and bare and unrecognizable,
you are in love with the breath,
and forever you have lived.

and yet, when I dive into your mountainous eyes,
a rose with red petals speaks to my iris,

the blood you carry in your lips is the blood of rebirth.

you are so many within your skin,
you and your love and your condition
and the enormous futures growing in momentum.

you know now the destiny of the uprooted tree.

you have your roots in the sky now.
you know it,
now that you are in the solidarity space of nowhere.

your history is your memory.
life is made of steps and steps and steps.
you are huge now,
because you inhabit it completely.

why are you born in the mouth of a volcano?
its throat awake, schizophrenic and cannibal,
in this piranha social destiny?

can a question quench your thirst?
can an answer feed your little child, or blanket a rainy sleep?
perhaps it does.

perhaps
has paved the road under your somnambulist feet so far.

what a kingly laughter under your cheeks!
I love how you love life-

thank you;

for spreading on your way
as the snail on its trail,
un-bended dignity.