Funeral song

So

The other night I was at a funeral, in Zacapa

“Now we’re exhausted,” I told

The polite audience who chose to listen to me

“On account of hunger, of the weight of elders and the lightness of children

But above all, on account of so much flightlessness

That we’ve just about had it. Always

Traveling, always confused, we knock

On the doors of the well-to-do

With our fatally wounded hands”

And I said more—a whole lot more

But outside of the family, not even a word

We used to have a proud heart

and the highest resolution in the face of windstorms

But now it’s time to say

“Stay cool, little head of mine, stay cool”

A few weeks later, another funeral, now on Fifth Avenue

The deceased was a woman named Sánchez Rosales

Sharp as a spear, her image

Collected the clear patina of our doubts and anxieties

“Don’t cry for the dead,” she said

“Or for the disappeared. Cry, instead,

For the living, for their cousins and brothers

Murdered in front of their door”

And she offered some solutions—in fact

Many solutions of the unpleasant kind, what can I tell you

We used to have a proud heart

And plenty of thick skin for the inclement

Weather and the madness of man

But now it’s time to say

“Be patient, urn of mine, be patient.”