#poem, «Mother take Me to the Other Side of the Wall»

(Written while listening to Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt)

Lamentation No. 1

I walked barefoot with my mother on rocky sun scorched sands,

the blisters hurt,

my lips were burned.

My mother laughed, then cried…

We had no food or water and shade we could not find.

“But once you taste abundance there,

my son, beyond the great white wall,

then all this suffering and pain,

you won’t recall at all.”

So forward we continued to the paradise up north,

until the wall came into view…

Then soldiers rushed and grabbed her.

My mother tried to run.

She tried to push me towards a crack

where she thought that I could fit,

so I perhaps could scramble through

and in the northern side

I’d finally live.

My mom died in my little arms as soldiers grouped around us,

in the shadow of the wall,

with the northern air around us.

I swore one day I’d find a way to make my dream reality,

and my mother’s bones I’ll carry there

to northern hospitality…

C.2024, Francisco Bravo Cabrera/02 AUG 2024, Izmir, Turkey

NOTA BENE

«Mother Take Me to the Other Side of the Wall; Lamentation No. 1» is an part of a larger work titled «On The Other Side of the Wall» which is part of my upcoming book (untitled as of this moment). The poem featured on this page is not exactly like the one which will appear in the book, but the spirit and the narrative is identical.

The idea that permeates the book that I am writing is the plight of refugees. I lived in Miami, Florida (US) among Cubans that had once arrived as refugees to the United States. They were escaping the horrors of communism and were seeking freedom in northern lands. At that time the US government happily opened their arms and their hearts to these refugees. Of course, they came in orderly and legal fashion.

But even those who later ventured out to sea, to cross the Straits of Florida in rafts or makeshift boats were also accepted. Haitians were also appearing on Florida shores on boats and rafts, seeking refuge from corrupt governments. They were welcomed. After that, in 1980, when the Sandinista-Communists took over Nicaragua, thousands and thousands of Nicaraguan refugees arrived and they were received with open hospitality. Later, when Venezuela fell to Chavez and Maduro, the Venezuelans began arriving in Miami and they were treated with welcome arms. There are also thousands of Argentinians, Columbians and many others. Although not all are political refugees, many of the ones from these other countries are immigrants seeking a better economical situation, but all were welcome…

What is happening now? The government wants to build a wall. Well, a wall will not stop willpower, determination or the quest for a better life!

Didn’t Ronald Reagan ask Mikhail Gorbachev to «…tear down that wall»?

I lived among prior political refugees and immigrants. They are hard working, industrious, well educated and well established people. Cubans made Miami the megalopolis that it is today, a city with more than six millions people. President Obama gave that example to the communist government when he spoke before the Cuban parliament in Havana. I was not an immigrant, I went there because of my father’s job. I studied in the US. I served in the US Army, and in the county sheriff’s office and in the Coast Guard as a reserve officer, and worked to make the US a better place. The others, immigrants and former political refugees, do too.

CHEERS