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| Yrene Santos |
DEPARTURE
There I left those who love me
Hearts torn before the embrace
That would divide my life into before and after
I came, tender-wombed
A garden complete, happily growing
Like a child who resists birth
For fear of being punished
Nostalgia...does it reward or punish me?
The steadfast speed of the waves
This river hides within them like the memories
I carry under my hair
In the distance
I see faces I miss
Their smiles brimming with tenderness
Stifling tears
I think of the words I’d like to write
Before they disappear in time
I feel droplets behind my eyelashes
I am bursting with longing
But I am happy to breathe
To listen to the laughter of those I love
To feel the arms that hold me before sleeping
And that at other times
Remove me from the place I wished to stay
Where I enjoyed different colors of life
Like my thoughts
The boats pass quickly
The bigger ones travel slowly
Its passengers wish to take away a whiff of air
And the water’s dance
The names numbers of dreams sleeplessness all that
is green
Here between these bridges
People go or come from a rendezvous with their love
Tearful hopeful
Tearful hopeful
Other dreams are being constructed behind me
Even in this bitter weather
Here I speak
I speak with my body
I stretch it to make myself stronger
On my birthday
Here, I wait for the baseball game to end
So I may return to the new and renewed
Old aromas of my home
Here I speak and come to an understanding with my soul
I clean my circle to move on
I take advantage of solitude
Of this closed-mouthed silence
Ten minutes past midday
I realize that time will be multiplied
And I should search for other words
To write another poem
To continue the diary of my everyday life.
HOPE
To where I left my dreams and passions
Eyes lost in the darkness of the sea
The blessing of tears and tenderness
The refreshing words
born of time and distance
I need time to caress the silence amid the dim light
To taste life in another dimension
To clear my thoughts
So that love can run in the fields
And kindness can reign forever.
That flees from its nest to the sky
Tangle up my naked feet
Wrap me in them
Let the saliva from your tongue fall onto
My knee
Smile
Free your lips
Return from the depths
Find God on the way
And connect your dreams
Build a pyramid of love
Saying all of this will
Brighten the morning
Hold me
Allow your tears to harden into ice
Glittery ice smiling at the rain
From the window
Hug me
From inside you.
Covering my eyes
I saw it floating on the ocean
I swam anxious to retrieve her
But a bolt cried loudly
Parting the sea in two
I stayed in the middle
Hanging from the lightning
A shower of mirrors of
Different sizes
Colors
Shapes
Fell
Nearly blind from squinting
I remembered the beginning
And I tried to move
Minutes passed
And I became glass
A statue
Ice
Carbon
A dream.
Second by second
I feel it in my blood
In my nails
In my throat
Full of dry bubbles
But I don’t want to die...
I’m scared to go
And leave my children
Carrying the weight
That comes with absence
I’m on the subway now
That takes me to my bed
Strewn with letters books
Little notes and bits of warmth
Holding onto a pole so as not to fall
Feeling the same coldness
That visits me every time
I feel empty
Every time this vertigo causes me
To sway in circles bumping into
Unfamiliar fingers, faces and chests
Hundreds of worlds surround me
Capable of forgetting
Growing
And I see my nails again
With that purplish-blue hue
That has consumed them lately
And the fear takes over me
There’s a cloth in my eyes
But it does not deter me from seeing
The different worlds around me
Listen
Do not let me die
With this hole that
Widens stretches
That comes and goes
That is my world
It is the garden that fades and
Never has enough rain
Sun
Wind
It is the garden of my death.
I began to rewrite the song of love
Spent thousands of hours floating in insecurity
Nightmares transformed me into a bedridden nomad
A different heart spoke to me every day
And the void grew
It transformed into a horizon of majestic gardens
Shadows celebrating my steps
Dawn perched itself on my windowsill
where my reflection remained
(And dawn in the shape of an angel
Came through the glass
Carefully enveloped me
Took me with it)
And it didn’t bring me back
Until I was just a spot clinging to an umbilical cord.
