The Blood Ceremonies Poem by Santiago Mutis Durán

A lacerating anger illumines
my first days like a fever
An imbecile herd of teachers
tore up my childhood
Their negligence burning up the terrible purity
around it, ravaging the prayer
Innocent days, like streets
sowed with schools seedy joints butcher's shops
Lives disfigured
at the doors of Paradise
of every day
If God knew what they have done
and what they have left undone
If God knew how they keep silent
Fear does light them
neither does light
sings to them
breaking out
from the breasts
of their mothers
Ah, life passes like the graceful shadow of a vessel
on a sacred mirror of blood

Moons, a thousand snow moons
on the sacred fire
and in the sky the howls
of fiery slaughterhouses shine

The voice of God like a funereal mantle
leaves its frost
on the villages of Winter
and congeals the milk in the stables

The rain shines like a moonless country
- a pure soul -
where caravans and sailboats go astray
like sweet belfries
like a single mass
a unique communion in all the cathedrals

Someone whispers - maybe my mother -
in my ear the names
of the plants, the seeds, the sprouts
the red names of the birds
without annoyance
amid tears

Translation: 2005, Nicolás Suescún