Let Us Celebrate Anew a Happy 4th of July: Edifice of Gold / Edificio en Oro

These poems I have published in several places now, but I would like to share them with you here to show you all that though our freedoms are presently threatened in this "land of the free & the brave," people -- asylum seekers from across the world -- still seek this land, even with all its threats to our liberties.

We need to fight for them, for our future, as we remember the words,

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

Here are my sonnets then, in both Spanish & English, which ever you prefer. Happy 4th of July: may we keep fighting for our real freedoms!

Hues of Gold

@ Ana M. Fores Tamayo

Edifice of Gold

She handed her little boy the gallon jug of water.

Drink, she said. But only a little. We need to walk much further

before reaching shelter.

The heat scorched through the haze of sun, yellow dog burning

into her skull, tiring her hold of the child she carried on her hip,

the other holding her hand wearily: mama, estoy cansado...

The men, further ahead, looked to them sullenly,

threatening to leave them behind in the ashen dust.

The sands turned golden, yet burnt merciless indentations of

their own brown death, relentless, imprinted heatedly heartless,

holding hostage her wretched hopelessness.

Yet she stumbled onward, thinking of her son, her baby girl wrapped in a homemade sling,

blinded to those ruthless men scurrying on without her.

She must dream only of that Eden paradise luring its edifice of gold, her feinted freedom?

Arenas de oro
@ Ana M. Fores Tamayo

Edificio en Oro

An interpretation, not a translation 

(because translation is never poetry) 

  

Ella le entregó a su pequeño hijo el galón de agua.

Bebe, le aconsejó. Pero solo un poco. Tenemos que caminar mucho más

antes de llegar al santuario.

A través de la bruma el sol ardiente la quemaba; ese perro en llamas

le hacía arder su cuerpo, forzándola a soltar el agarre de la niña que llevaba a su cadera,

el otro sujetando su mano: mami, estoy cansado ...

Los hombres, adelante, miraban a los tres, ariscos,

amenazando con dejarlos atrás en el polvo ceniciento.

Las arenas se convertían en oro, pero quemaban muescas

de su propia muerte, implacables, ardiendo sin corazón,

teniendo como rehén a su miserable desesperanza.

Sin embargo, pensando en su hijo tambaleaba, su niña envuelta en un cabestrillo hecho en casa,

ciega a esos hombres que se escabullaban sin ella.

Tenía que soñar solo con ese Edén, su edificio en oro, su libertad ¿fingida?

About the author (me!)

Being an academic who was not paid enough for my trouble, I wanted instead to do something that mattered. Thus I began to advocate for marginalized refugee families from Mexico and Central America.

Working with asylum seekers is heart wrenching, yet satisfying. Their pain, their sorrow, their joy, is quite humbling. Moreover, being with them has helped me with my own sense of displacement, since I too was a child refugee, trying to find a new home.  

But this is the refugees' life today: I have seen it, I have heard it, I have cried tears with them through every phase. I have sat in the court rooms as they await news of their most definite deportation, and now I share their agony with the world, so that we realize it might not have to be this way… 

I also want to share their hope, their coming joys: help me do that by reaching out to help all migrants in this country of immigrants, like me!