Mail Archive of the old Santa Clara Valley Lutheran Parish

Subject: August 7 Meditation (amended)

Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 11:32:16 -0700 (PDT)

From: PrJohn <prjohnhrlc@aol.com>

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Subject: August 7 Meditation (amended)
From: PrJohn <prjohnhrlc@aol.com>
To: SCVLP <scvlp@googlegroups.com>
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They Have Threatened Us With Resurrection

It isn't the noise in the streets
that keeps us from resting, my friend,
nor is it the shouts of the young people
coming out drunk from "St. Paul's bar,
nor is it the tumult of thos who pass by excitedly
on their way to the mountains.


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
fixerd 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 awakening.


Now six of them have left us,
and nine in Rabinal,
and two, plus two, plus two,
and ten, a hundred, a thousand,
a whole army
witness to our pain,
our fearm
our courage,
our hope!


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!


They have threatened us with Resurrection
because we have felt their inert bodies
and their souls penetrated ours
doubly fortified.
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.


They have threatened us with Resurrection
because they will not be able to wrest from us
their bodies,
their souls,
their strength,
their spirit,
nor even their death
and least of all their life.
Because they live
today, tomorrow and always
on the streets, baptized in their blood
and in the air which gathered up their cry,
in the jungle that hid their shadows,
in the river that gathered up their laughter,
in the ocean that holds their secrets,
in the craters of the volcanoes,
Pyramids of the New Day
which swallowed up their ashes.


They have threatened us with Resurrection,
because they are more alive than ever before,
because they transform our agonies,
and fertilize our struggle,
because they pick us up when we fall,
and gird us like giants
before the fear of those demented gorillas.


They have threatened us with Resurrection
because they do not know life (poor things!)


That is the whirlwind
which does not let us sleep,
the reason why asleep, we keep watch,
and awake, we dream.


No, it's not the street noises,
nor the shouts from the drunks in "St. Paul's" bar,
nor the noise from the fans at the ball park.
It is the internal cyclone of a kaleidoscopic struggle
which will heal that wound of the quetzal
fallen in Ixcan.
It is the earthquake soon to come that will shake the world
and put everything in its place.


No, brother,
it is not the noise in the streets
which does not let us sleep.


Accompany us then on this vigil
and you will know what it is to dream!
You will 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!


Geneva, March 8, 1980


from Threatened With Resurrection
by Julia Esquivel
exiled Guatemalan poet