Still
I still have faith
I cannot stop believing
We weren’t just meant to destroy each other
I am a romantic
From the forgotten world
Nothing that happens in my country matters
In the large scheme of things
But when I am there
Breathing the dusty air of the dry months
A cruel April to defy Eliot
I know to wait for the first rainfall of the rainy season
To change despair into lust.
When I am there my life
and each of my compatriots inconsequential lives
(If we were to disappear all at once in an earthquake
we would be appropriately mourned but never again remembered)
Take the utmost importance
We don’t bitch about the forgetfulness of every citizen
Of New York and London
Because in our world we are busy believing we matter
And grabbing onto every hope we can muster
I was talking to a waiter the other day in Managua
—A proud man in his late forties—
He asked me if I had ever seen an aurora borealis
Because he had, he said. He had studied in Bulgaria
He was a geographer. But you know, there is not much use here
For what I know. Not yet, he added. But working as a waiter I am learning a lot about
foods and drinks. Diversifying my knowledge with the hope of working in tourism.
Hopefully our next president will care about tourism
having been Minister of Tourism himself. I will be able to use what I have learnt.
And he said good-bye and went to another table with his tray
Maybe hope comes from hop…We hop from one doorway to the next
because we must.
It is that hopping that makes me have faith
Human beings as the beginning and the end,
The Alfa and the Omega
My faith rests with them
Against all reason.
Copyright © 2006 Gioconda Belli. All rights reserved.
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