Poems in Exile

To Quicken The Dawn

We must get up early to quicken the Dawn
to see the sun rise sooner.

Over in the Bijolon the marimba will laugh
as the youngsters tickle its ribs.

We'll hear again the song of the birds
as they greet the new day down by the waterfall.

We must go see the flowering cornfield
in Salquil Grande.

We'll eat wild fruit again and climb up to Xeucalbita
where we made soup from the fish
we'd gathered in the stream.

We'll hear the women's laughter by the fire
as they toast their tortillas on the coals.

We'll go back to Trapichito
and hear the fireworks
announcing again
the celebration of Holy Mass
the True Mass where there'll be
bread enough for all.

We must go back to Parramos
and cut fresh watercress in the canyon
and as we eat, we'll hear
the murmur of the current
whispering to itself the secrets of the sower.

Then, America,
everything will be different,
children will know the taste of real milk,
and their parents can return
to the school they left as youngsters
so as not to die of hunger.

We'll go back to Chajul
and we won't see the military police
from the Army of the Rich,
the army of those who take their orders
from uniformed gorillas.
We'll go back to Ixcan.
hand in hand with Mario Mujia
and we'll kneel to kiss the earth
that holds the hearts of the 1975 martyrs.

We'll clasp hands with the orphans
and feel the echoing steps
of the ragged ones
who followed the Star
and made fun of Herod.

When Dawn comes
we will recognize them by their step.

We must watch over this pregnancy with tenderness
we must rise above the absurd stupor
of the uniformed gorillas.

The sky over our homeland has grown very dark,
but dawn is almost upon us,
and God helps those who rise early
and brings the day on sooner for them.

We will gather again 'round the fire
and the children's hands
won't ever again be cold.
Worms will no longer devour
the little families
when Dawn comes.

The military posts won't rob us any more
of the keys to the cooperative.
The little ones' fears will vanish,
and they'll return to the new parish school.

When Dawn comes
the widows will be surrounded by family,
but for now, we must rise early
to hasten the new day.

Then they'll never again break our teeth
with their rifle butts to silence our cries,
never again will the soldiers
take our brother away,
then dump his body in the canyon.

Never again will they rape the little girls
and dance with our wives.
Never again will we plant
for them to eat.
Never again will they steal our animals
to fill their stomachs.

Soon--very soon--
the musicians will begin
with the pa-rum-pum-pum
in the great gathering of Momostenango
and the prayer and the incense
will rise above us all.

For those who killed
the chosen ones of the Great Grandmother,
now Judgment Day begins.
He who is mounted above the world
has already smelled the smoke
of their burned bodies.
Now a great rage
begins to pour down the mountain
from which our victory comes.

It will be so dark
the condemned won't even see what awaits them.
Though they speak of themselves as Christians,
they will not remember Mary's words.

God raises up the poor from the mud,
and the powerful will tumble head-first,
those who wept will laugh with fulfillment,
and everything will become again
as in the beginning,
When Dawn comes.

We Dream Awake

What won't let us rest, brother,
isn't the noise from the street,
nor the shouts of the young people
coming along drunk from Saint Paul;
it's not the noise of those rushing by
toward the mountains.

What won't let us sleep
what won't let us rest
what won't stop pulsing away
here within what won't stop pulsing away
is the silent warm weeping
of the Indian women without their husbands,
the tragic gaze of the children
engraved deep down in our memory,
in the very child that our eyes,
though closed in sleep, keep watching
in every contraction of the heart
in every expansion of the heart,
at every dawn.

Six gone just now,
and nine in Rabinal,
And two and two and two,
and ten and a hundred and a thousand...
a whole army
witness to our pain,
to our fear,
to our courage, to our hope!

What won't let us sleep
is that we've been threatened with Resurrection!
Because every evening,
tired by now from the endless
counting since 1954,
we still go on loving life
and we won't accept their death.

We've been threatened with Resurrection
because we've touched their lifeless bodies
and their souls have penetrated our own,
now doubly strengthened.
Because in this Marathon of hope,
there are always replacements
to carry on the strength
until we reach that goal beyond death.

We've been threatened with Resurrection
because we can't be robbed
of their bodies
of their souls
of their strength
of their spirit
nor even of their death,
let alone their life.
Because they live
today, tomorrow and always
in the street bathed with their blood,
in the air that carried off their cries,
in the jungle that hid their shadows,
in the river that gathered up their laughter,
in the ocean that hides their secrets,
in the volcano craters,
in the Pyramids of the Dawn
which swallowed their ashes.

We've been threatened with Resurrection
because they are more alive than ever,
because they crowd our agony,
because they make our struggle grow,
because they lift us when we fall
because they rise up like giants
before the crazed gorillas.

This is the whirlwind
that won't let us rest,
that keeps us watching as we sleep
and dreaming while awake.

No, it's not the noise of the street
nor the shouts of the drunks in St. Paul,
nor the roaring of the stadium.
It's the cyclone within of a technicolor struggle
which will heal Guatemala's wounded spirit
defeated in Ixcan,
it's the earthquake drawing near
to shake the world
and put everything
in its place.

No, brother,
it isn't the street noise
that keeps us from sleeping....

Be with us in this vigil
and you'll learn what it means to dream
you'll know then
how wonderful it is
to live threatened with Resurrection!

To dream, awake
to watch, asleep
to live, dying
and to know yourself already
Risen!

Julia Esquivel was the editor of Dialogo, an ecumenical magazine of the Guatemalan church, when this article appeared. In 1979, the government gave Guatemalan Post offices an order to stop handling the magazine, and Julia's name was placed on a death list. Julia went underground awhile and is now in exile outside Guatemala; Dialogo is being sent out from Mexico. The poems were translated by Sally Hanlon of Tabor House in Washington, D.C.