weeping Poem by Andrea Cote

María,
I speak about the mountains where life grows slowly
those that do not exist in my port of light,
where everything is desert and ashes
and your smile is a tarnished gesture.

There January is the month of the unburied dead
and the land of the first corpse.
María,
don't you remember?
don't you see anything?
There our voices are scorched
as our skin
and our heels get burned
for not wanting to know
about the burned up houses.

I speak María
about this land which is the thirst I live with
and the bed in which life is buried.

Think María
that this is not living
and that life is any other thing that exists,
damp in the ports where water does flower,
and where there is not a bonfire in each stone.

Remember, María,
that we are
food for dogs and birds,
we are parched up men,
empty barks
of what we used to be.
What are you made of, my child?
Why do you think you can sew the crack in the landscape
with the thread of your voice?
if this land is a wound that bleeds
in you and in me
and in all the things
made of ashes.

In our land
the raven looks at us with your eyes
and the flowers wilt
out of hatred of us
and the earth opens up holes
to force us to die.