In Memoriam...

[Xipe Totec]

4. I did not weep for those whose lives ended tragically that day,

but for those who survived to carry on with shattered dreams and broken lives.

I wanted to give a voice to grief that night and found it in a poem by Miguel Hernández, a Spanish writer who served with the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s. One of Miguel’s closest friends was murdered in an act of revenge like many during the war. Miguel Hernández wrote a eulogy to his friend and poured into it his grief and his rage.

...

There is no wider chasm than my wound,
I cry to misfortune and her companions,
I feel your death, more than my life.

Unkempt and unshaved,
without warmth or consolation,
I tend to my affairs soullessly.

Death took flight early,
and early came the dawn of morn,
and early it spills upon the ground.

I do not forgive death for loving you,
or forgive life for its distraction,
or forgive the ground,
or forgive oblivion.

With bare hands I raise a storm,
of stones, bolts and strident axes,
thirsting and hungering for catastrophe.

With bare teeth I want to dig the ground,
and move the dirt part by part,
in dry and furious bites.

I want to mine the earth until I find you,
to kiss your noble skull,
unbind your body and return you,
to my garden and my fig tree.

...