Chuitziribal

I feel like the beauty of this land and the resilience of these people should be able to inspire, in me, a poem. I should be able to carefully arrange beautiful words that paint even more beautiful pictures. I should write about the mountains and the flowers. Or maybe about the dust and our now permanently dirty feet. If nothing else, an ode to the children. An ode to their laughter and their games. An ode to their fearless and unwavering love for me. For us. For us whose government has spent years repressing theirs. For us who enjoy countless privileges at their expense. But that’s not our fault or our decision. We don’t have control. So we laugh with those children and tell them yes, we love you too. Yes, we’ll miss you too. Yes, we won’t forget you either.

But I will forget the sounds of their laughter. I will forget the rhymes they taught me and the games we played and the joy I felt.

Because I always forget.

And there are no words that could capture these moments. There are no words that could help me remember.

I just hope the joy was profound enough to have changed my heart forever.  

Poem to the Sky
The sky is very beautiful and pretty
Where we see the stars and the moon
Where our ancestors live
And where our grandparents live
And where our greatest Father lives.
The sky is blue
And in it, the airplanes fly

The sky is very large
Where there are clouds that want to rain
The sky is like a crystal
And it is the place where we dream many things that become our realities.

We hope that our grandparents are in the sky in paradise. 

Written by these beautiful children: