Red rose, bring us in return a smile.
Author: Marlene Franco Suárez.
Translate: José Severo Morejón.
To Gerardo, Ramón, René, Fernando and Antonio, unjustly kidnapped in USA jails.
Walking along the streets of the peaceful neighborhood Hermanos Cruz, I perceived with immense pleasure a festive environment.
The going and coming of its citizens, the bicitaxis (an alternative for life quality) full with its passengers and respective packages, the cars of other parts of the country with the contagious happiness of friends and family who reunite, the shouting of children and other scenes that are characteristic of this time of the year, show the environment of peace in this geography of Pinar del Río.
For the first time I walked alone, accompanied by my memories, not by the hand of my daughter, who because of her scientific results decided to face the difficult but not impossible task of passing the mastery course in a sister country. This long distance has taught us to value, from both of us, the importance of family love; that strengthens the challenge of the new learnings of life.
Some nostalgy, why not? That made me minimize the happiness I had experimented; suddenly, a complex of guilt, I felt ashamed with myself: I felt selfish. I recurred, in an act of selfreflexion, to the images that go around the world of mothers claiming for their sons and daughters disappeared, jailed, burnt by products of massive extermination, tortured, or any other atrocity which may have occurred to the illegal president of the most powerful country of the world. In reality I do not have right to sadness.
Deep in these meditations I was, when suddenly before me appeared a garden; wonderful red roses shone in this sunny morning of beginning of New Year. Different verses came to my mind, I do not know if technically they are good, but they came from my soul for the mothers, who like me see in each rose the sweet smile of their off springs.
A red rose from the distance.
Red rose that sticks to the colors of dawns,
Full the happiness the sad roads of this far distance;
Give us strength to start new paths;
Irradiate your energy and strength for infinite spaces,
Spread majestuously your spirit over the universe:
In the heights , the forests, the plains,
The deserts, on the sea bed, the refuges, the basements,
The jails….
Red rose bring us in return a smile.
Martes, 03 de Enero de 2006 20:02
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