Gedigte/Poems

There is something here within us
Which doesn't let us sleep, which doesn't let us rest,
Which doesn't stop pounding deep inside,
It is the silent, warm weeping of Indian women without their husbands,
It is the sad gaze of the children
Fixed there beyond memory,
In the very pupil of our eyes
Which during sleep, though closed, keep watch
With each contraction of the heart
In every wakening...

What keeps us from sleeping
Is that they have threatened us with resurrection!
Because at each nightfall,
Though exhausted from the endless inventory
Of killings since 1954,
Yet we continue to love life,
And do not accept their death!

...Because in this marathon of Hope,
there are always others to relieve us
in bearing the courage necessary
to arrive at the goal which lies beyond death...

Accompany us then on this vigil
And you will know what it is to dream!
You will then know how marvelous it is
To live threatened with resurrection!
To dream awake,
To keep watch asleep
To live while dying
And to already know oneself resurrected!



Julia Esquivel het baie lyding verduur terwyl sy gewerk het in `n gemeenskap waar onregverdige gevangeniskap, moord en marteling aan die orde van die dag was. Sy was `n leraar, digter en menseregte aktivis wat haar self gegee het in die stryd om geregtigheid vir die weerlose minderheidsgroepe wat gelei het onder die diktatorskap in Guatemala.

• Prev