Why We Run: Thoughts for Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzales

By Octaviano Merecias-Cuevas (May 29, 2018)

To whom it may concern: Why we run!

We run to catch the bus at 4:30AM in America
Running our hands to the bones; here, look!

We run with contagious joy like Tarahumaras
We run like whistles emerging from the Zapotec clouds; calling.
We run to the hills to watch our temples burned; Guatemala
We run like poetry of peace in paragraphs of war; Tu’uun Savi.

We run to escape decapitation in borders created by you;
We run to catch la bestia; to tame this tender journey of life
We run with torch and fire of humanity; a reminder of our yesterday’s tomorrows.

We run; porque si no corremos ahora;
El mañana no llegará nunca; contigo.

We run to complete your restaurant orders;
To caress the patience of your landscape and industry
To complete your gold chains desde los andes; las minas
To catch the rain before our dry lips become silence; Bolivia; chained water is death.

Can you understand 500 years of running; escaping?
This indignity of invisibility in everyday songs of poverty?

We run three times as fast just to stay afloat with you;
But we cannot run faster than your bullets… this is America.

Only the shattered pieces of our spirit can… levitating in memories coming back to you; us.

Poesia Mixta
RIP: Claudia Patricia Gómez Gonzáles

octavio

3 thoughts on “Why We Run: Thoughts for Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzales”

  1. Poeta del pueblo y la humanidad. Que bendición la mía conocer a este joven y haberlo tenido de estudiante.

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