I do not know...

[Gustavo Cordoba]

I do not know when we were mud in your hands,

raw mixture of veins and tendons,

secretly emptied

within the simple perfection of a spiral.

 

In Us there is no memory of dust,

and despite the fingers that strike upon us,

there is a tremor that shines in our temples

that  sings to us the defeat of death.

 

And I know that you are there, that you wait for us:

How could we dream if not,  with so much blood?

How to lie down and wake up if not, just in a scream?

 

If I did not know,

I would blind my eyes

sewing my eyelids with the skin

that they left in fences and barbed wires.

I would seal my ears with the dust of  their bones

That were reduced in gigantic chimneys.

 

Oh!

if it were not so,

then I would not be this chrysalis, all hope:

I would throw my body among the worms,

I would abhor the earth.