The Return - Claribel Alegría

How will the return be?
My parents won’t be there
I won’t climb the volcano
with them
to gather orchids.
The jasmine won’t be there
nor the araucaria.
Nor will there be a fortress
in front of my house
nor children
flaunting their misery
nor mud shanties
with tin roofs.
I have never seen
my mother’s tomb
my childhood
next to her
my first seedbed
of memories
my rainbow arch
glowing
dimming
sinking roots
soaring
peopling me with birds.
They were times of peace
those distant times
of somnolence
and peace.
Now is a time of war
of steps leading upward
of love that seeds dreams
and shakes one.
Return obsesses me
Faces fly by
through the open fissure.
Once more there’ll be peace
but of a different kind.
The rainbow glimmers
tugs at me
forcefully
not that inert peace
of shrouded eyes
it will be a rebellious
contagious peace
a peace that opens furrows
and aims at the stars.
The rainbow shatters
the sky splits open
rolls up like a scroll
of shadows
inviting us to enter
and be dazzled.
Come, love, let’s return
to the future.

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Claribel Alegría (1924 - 2018)  El Salvador (born in Nicaragua)
Translated by Darwin J. Flakoll
Source: BOMB Magazine