Reflections on Exile, Pain, and Distance
This is not a poem. Nor does it pretend to be literature in the formal sense of the word. I was not born a poet, nor do I write with any claim to being one. If anything here resembles poetry, it will be for those who know that craft to decide. What follows is simply an exercise in spontaneity — a kind of improvised reflection shaped by a walk and by an inner unease.
During today’s walk I could not avoid lingering on an uncomfortable thought: the condition of exile, which eventually places us in a strange position before the history of our own countries.
From a distance, the exile observes conflicts that once felt personal. The wars are still there, the crises are still there, and political passions continue tearing people apart. Yet those who live far away inevitably become outsiders — witnesses looking from the margins at battles that others continue to fight.
Perhaps that is why this text takes the form of a personal declaration. The “Here I am” that follows speaks for me, but it could just as easily speak for millions of people who live far from the homeland where they were born.
Here I am,
in exile,
floating in the universe of my circumstances,
conjuring borrowed lives,
accepting that I do not deserve to be from where heroes have been left behind
living unsung lives and consuming their days
while attempting to mitigate the siege of evil;
heroes who do not yearn to reconcile their lives
because they settled for that.
Here I am,
a fugitive from myself,
playing that eternal coward searching for relief
from the bitterness that turned him into an immigrant.
Here I am,
peacefully enjoying the wars I do not wage
and which I mediate as if I had the right,
far from my birthplace and where I no longer
deserve to belong.
Here I am,
experiencing the surrealism of the discontented,
deluded into thinking that exile would mean
I should no longer witness such misfortune,
as if draining the Caribbean from the imagination
would drown out our people’s woes.
Here I am,
unable to find my own peace and not understanding
the peace invented there—peace that hides the blood
used by the dead to paint the canvas of our history.
Here I am,
enjoying an exile’s contentment,
a scarcity of happiness inherent to conformity,
half-measures of enjoyment,
pleasure often described but rarely felt,
a surly bliss more contemplated than experienced.
Contentment? Not much of it in exile.
Lots of longing,
the same as over there.
Here I am,
in absurdity,
attempting to cope with distant events,
news I refuse to accept as my own,
though it pertains to me.
Here I am,
being patriotic in isolation or in a crowd;
a homeland of consciousness
born in complicit corners to provide an internal exile
that never forsakes me,
that indulges me for years while I exorcise the loss
of those who gave birth to me.
There they are,
the ones I left behind one day atop the waterwheel
of a society that chooses the helpless in order to feed despair.
Piles of delicacies devoured by corruption,
that circumstance surrounded by swindling monsters
hiding in the fog,
sniffing everything out.
There they are,
most often self-censored,
guarding their silence in exchange for their lives,
orphaned of their will,
their consciences kidnapped and forced to lie;
consciences intimidated by brutal cowardice.
Hapless paupers,
insignificant in a society in which they are invisible,
forced into complicity,
witnessing massacres they cannot report,
outbursts transformed into memories saturated with resentment.
There they are,
the innocent heroes aging as I do,
heroes giving birth to new lives—
lives for whom savagery becomes inherent.
Children of sultry nations remaining stoically erect
despite the lashes inflicted by so much violence.
Homelands managed from the façade of information groups
created to anesthetize the minds of those left in my wake.
Groups spawning new monsters from catastrophe,
new innocents,
new guileless fools,
new culprits,
new losers kindling the grandeur of those who systematically deny
all victims their right to justice.
There they are,
the corrupted,
blended into the background of society,
empowering outrage and expelling an unbearable
and deathly impertinent stench.
Breath stinking of spiritual decomposition
and the total absence of love;
the corrupted walking about keeping their heads down
and a low profile,
mixed into the flow of decent people
moving through town and countryside;
thugs lurking along the same paths
on which my peers walk.
Peers who understand, horrified, that their streets
no longer belong to them
but to the noisome spawn stalking them;
the stench can never be removed—
it clings to them after the first crime.
In my country, death stares you
in the face impudently,
challenging you,
terrifying you,
intimidating you,
foreshadowing who will be next.
There they are,
the violent, ubiquitous ones,
those who specialize in the transference of life into death.
Old and tired of so much killing,
decrepit men forced into retirement by time—
their only executioner.
Retired from turpitude,
spiritual accomplices of iniquity and depravity.
Owners of expropriated lands,
boasting of morals,
honor,
decorum;
flatulent with social wisdom,
masters of effrontery,
eternal imbeciles
gambling with their peoples’ fate.
There they are,
in the Caribbean,
where the enemies of Western culture and democracy
take shelter.
Preachers of peace
murdered by their own butchers,
dark doves signing peace treaties
while burying hundreds of thousands in anonymity
together with millions of mourners.
There they are,
the same ilk as the others—or worse—
the vulgar white-collared gods.
Repugnant, reeking,
even more fetid,
shameless ones who never held a weapon even in defense
yet have killed thousands;
who have not retired because they steward fortunes
for their heirs;
who receive family handouts
because they thrive on unseen crimes;
surprised by sudden murders they knew would take place,
untold yet well-known vileness,
massive, recurring rape,
premeditated manslaughter,
patricide never solved but imagined,
fratricide of the nation’s brothers and sisters.
There they are,
evildoers abetting the Master of Iniquity,
graduating with honors from the university of evil;
organizational chameleons
infiltrated into institutions,
turkeys strutting along the hallways and columns
of official headquarters,
wasting the power their victims afforded them
in exchange for meager favors and crumbs.
There they are,
prevailing forever and ever,
legitimizing ill-gotten gains;
professional brutes,
gurus of disgrace,
masterminds of mystery,
sitting on their thrones,
camouflaged,
vested in dignity,
heading government agencies,
dispensing injustice and inequality,
running for president
with sly smiles and Machiavellian reasoning.
Judases to our own passions,
to our own history.
They have never left,
and they never will.
There it is,
violence cheerfully coming and going,
forever the queen and matron;
tsarina of poverty and abandonment;
avenger of the displaced;
ancient as the earth and its creatures;
mankind’s ethical transgressor;
savage and cruel.
There it is,
waiting to strike a blow,
ready to detonate,
to sacrifice itself to appease the beasts;
reminding us that the mandate of shame
is a law invented by mankind for its own destruction;
frivolous and virulent,
the worst of plagues in existence,
the evil majesty of the deprived.
There it is,
furtive corruption,
from the day some thug invented it
in times immemorial;
thieving unnoticed,
disguising what is noble,
philanthropic,
spoiling trust.
There it is,
corruption ever younger,
most popular in our time,
most accepted by conformity,
most socialized;
the jet set of modern times,
fueling the evils of every country;
rampant locusts governing my people,
raison d’être of modern power—
of a democracy welcomed by leaders and idealists.
There it is,
damned corruption
reigning over monarchies of impunity;
corrupting advocates,
accusing innocents,
pillaging,
fabricating evidence and proving falsehoods;
mocking trust and violating it;
laundering and laundering again;
disguising ill-gotten gains;
governing by pilferage;
squandering treasuries;
mutating through the revolving doors
of tribunals,
courts,
ministries;
confidently exhibiting itself—
its existence,
its essence of recidivist power.
There they are,
the ones ushering savagery through their indifference;
the ones crying “God willing”;
the weak-willed wanderers;
the apathetic ignoring of kindred suffering;
the passive creatures believing that,
from where they stand,
it is someone else’s problem.