Taken hostage by this city,
I live emotions as they come,
reflecting is a vain attempt
But sometimes, for unknown motives
a flower, or perhaps the eyes of a child,
my gaze blurs over the cars and the skyscrapers,
and my land seems so close.
The road home, dark, hostile,
where more than once they stole my nettles,
a cloud of fireflys that entertained me so,
the hands of my father that
leave in my hair the scent of humid earth,
the drops of sweat of my mother,
spread across my face:
she kissed me while plucking a chicken.
A silent tear
when for the first time I understood
the weight of poverty
when for the first time I wanted to go away
when with few bags
I gave a kiss to my parents
and I farewelled my country with much bitterness
with the thought that our roots are steel chains.
Now I know that to this strange land,
I will bequeath only my unhappy infancy.
Spent with women with faces alive and lived,
and with the men with big hands,
with children happy and colourful,
unconscious of the evil mask
they will have to wear.
Between the strong laughs that explain your life
and the dry sobs that indicate your destiny.
In a land, like a pregnant woman,
however fertile, but without milk to feed,
good, but never smiling,
in a land of few words,
as they are too serious to be said.
Translation by Katie Hepworth