The Red Tears of Palestine

by Ivan A. Salazar M.

In the land that keeps both names and wounds,

springs of dust, a song, memory split,

red tears fall like rubies on the loam

of the olive’s skin, the distant throat.

Dawn bleeds over roofs and market squares,

faces lit by the day’s encircling smoke;

each drop is a verse that will not leap,

a mother’s whisper, a cry that hopes.

Shadows walk with buttons of fire on them,

hands hold maps they were taught to forget;

hope blooms among the rubble and the poor,

a tiny flame that will not be silenced yet.

And at night, when the sky seems shut and bare,

the red tears tell that still can spring

the seed that stands, the voice that speaks the name:

Palestine, memory that keeps on dreaming.