Gioconda Belli: The Trees of My City

A song ”to the green future of the exiled trees”

HAVANA TIMES – The following is a poem from Nicaraguan poet and novelist Gioconda Belli on the different trees of Managua, some live, some metallic.

The Trees of My City

I sing to the ceiba,
the banyan
the oak,
to genízaros
and jiñocuagos.

These trees, monuments of our land
Manes of flowing green
will outlast me,
my children
and perhaps my grandchildren.

The electric trees, instead, will perish.
One by one their lights will dim,
their metal trunks will corrode
their rusted skeletons
will be sold as scrap.
their days will end
in the cemetery of useless things.

One day, the wind whistling through the city,
the night
will be ours once more.
It is already written in Earth’s secret book.

I sing to the ceiba,
the banyan
the oak,
to genízaros
and jiñocuagos.
I sing the green future
of the exiled trees.