This poetry collection forms part of the community creation project Acto Reflejo. Through workshops and activities in the Málaga district, the group (multicultural and intergenerational) works together in a process of artistic creation and collective construction.
In Zenda we reproduce five poems from Vecinas: Poems from the Palma-Palmilla neighborhood (Letraversal).
***
THE LOSSES
A family member dies
and new ones come into the world.
The spoon in hand
and the children’s games.
Due to fatigue
the babies slipped
from the mothers’ arms
in the prams.
Because of fatigue.
My heart is broken
for the losses.
***
DAWNING IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD
Daybreak arrives today. My little eyes have awakened.
From my balcony
I watch your streets.
Here is my neighborhood. I take a deep breath of the air it gifts us.
In silence I listen to the song of the birds.
I follow their fluttering movements around the tree.
The stars have gone to sleep.
The Mount Coronao bore witness.
I also hear its gentle, distant snore.
I hope that tomorrow we will meet again.
May beauty illuminate us to keep us hopeful.
***
MY GRANDFATHER DIED TWICE
My grandfather died twice.
My grandmother lived for years
believing that the love of her life had died.
She waiting for a call that never came,
gazing at her black dress in the closet,
remembering the journey, the photo she kept of him.
One early morning the phone rang and there he was:
“Miguel, is that you? I always knew you were alive.”
More calls followed,
days spent on the phone.
With each conversation time was recovered a little.
One day my grandfather truly died.
She did the only thing she had left: take his black dress from the closet.
She took the love of her life with her—for she wore black to his wedding—and with him she said goodbye.
***
I HAVE BEEN A FOREIGNER
I have been a foreigner in the Medina of Fez.
Also working at a catering service for the wealthy.
What saved me
was the help of the people.
I learned that, sometimes, speaking the same language we do not understand each other,
and speaking in different tongues we do.
I have been a foreigner when people have not given me my place,
and I, not understanding it, tried anyway.
I see my father without prejudice
and he teaches me without knowing it.
I will try not to forget.
What is missing will become a part of me, in my language.
***
HERE THERE WAS A NEIGHBORHOOD
[choral poem written by all the authors of the book].
There are opportunities for everyone,
but it depends on the place where you were born.
We are seeing it: our country is crumbling.
Everything seems like a lie, and we cannot fail.
We are waiting in the noise of the world.
The months pass, salaries do not arrive, few opportunities.
We are tearing down a wall. Every day.
And all we want is love.
What lies outside will not finish us.
We share the wound; we are the same flesh.
Little by little we will make that wall crack.
Even when we cannot go on any more we know that wall has a crack.
And we think: can’t you look at us from another place?
Rage sinks what we are.
I want the wall to crack and to be seen by me.
And to be seen by us.
I can see that together it is possible.
Look at how little we have opened a gap in the wall.
Look at my fingers, which are also fists.
I hear the neighborhood dancing to its songs
and I can feel that things are changing.
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Authors: Cristian Alcaraz and Ignacio Mateos (eds.) Title: Vecinas: Poemas desde la barriada de Palma-Palmilla.Publisher: Letraversal. Sales: Todos tus libros.
The authors of this book are Araceli Orellana Martín, Lucía Vargas Aguilar, Paola Aguilar Ortiz, Yolanda Medina Fernández, Fanny Soudry Jiménez, Carmen Martín Díaz, Encarni Díaz Torres, Almudena Ruiz Ruiz, Julienne Hortense, Rafi Virella Martín, Antonio Jiménez Pérez, María del Carmen Guerrero Luque, Loli Montes Martín, Conchi Domínguez Segovia, Jose Espejo Portero, María José Castro Cejas, Pepi Salido Ruiz, Mari Carmen Castillo Aranda, Rosario Macías, Geraldine Reina, Hiba Zahra Erbib Errafay and Victoria Adaeze Ezeh Amadasun.