So often I've decided to forget you as if you were a cruel lover who slams the door in your face or one of those who, the more you love, the quicker they forget. But however hard I try, I can't forget you, your rain, your wind, your greenness, papers rustling in the street, the oak dropping its blossoms like silk shells on the pavements, the face of the child holding a rag, his smile covering his poverty to overcome it. Dusk descending over the pointed peak of the distant volcano, clouds spreading red and violet across the sky. Your people's quick-witted, playful way of talking. Then everything I curse and scorn about you undoes me and love breaks in like horses galloping in my breast. I look at you through silk cotton and golden trumpet trees, lemonwood, mahogany and palm trees and I love you, country of my dreams and pains. I take you with me to wash away your stains in secret, whisper hope to you, promise you healing and spells to save you I speak words because they cement my life and through words I imagine you born again, shining, free of the worms that eat into your foundations day by day. Those who sell and rob and abuse you I snatch out of your hair. I tell you stories on my pillow, I tuck you in and close your eyes so you can't see the murderers coming to behead you. My land, landscape, I'll die and so will my distress but you'll go on, set in the same place, snuggling into my memories and my bones.
Gioconda Belli
Translated by Dinah Livingstone
Gioconda Belli now lives in exile in Spain. This poem was originally published in the Spanish newspaper El Païs.