Category: Poetry|Poesía: Protest|Protesta

Skin of Blood

(translation|modification of Piel de Sangre)

by Luis S. González-Acevedo

Owner of the Caribbean, where are your dreams?
Little Caribbean native, what do you inherit from your parents?
The skin color stained across your chest
that an eternal Golden Century turns to blood.

Taíno boy, where is your mother?
I seek in vain the man you call father.
The boy answers: “Both will arrive very late,
when the native red of their hands turns to blood.”

You were a boy; you’re now a man –you confuse me.
Tears and sweat fall from your cheeks.
Do you sweat as you cry like the strong? Or…
Do you cry as you sweat, empowering the villainous traitors?

Caribbean native, break your chains and be free!
I invite you to the land that’s always yours;
its clouds lick blood from your body:
Paradise of Cacique Hayuya.

A paradise that wipes away all tears
and channels them into a crystal brook.
The celestial king kisses them with his rays and transports them
to a place that’s not a place –deadly for tears.

–You can find the poem in Caribbean Poet, by Luis S. González-Acevedo or the original version in Spanish in Poemas Caribeños, por Luis S. González-Acevedo–