Nicaragua’s Political Prisoners
Who will sound the trumpets that tear down the walls?
By Gioconda Belli (Confidencial)
The days go by.
Twenty-four hours, repeated.
Do the prisoners have a watch?
Have they allowed them to retain on their wrists
some record of the time?
Or are they living, perhaps, in a night with no day,
a day with no night?
I think of the privilege of my window,
of my telephone’s alarm clock.
the messages that tell me of appointments
and obligations.
I can’t imagine time transformed
into a dark cosmos
Does hunger mark the hour,
or is it now so rampant
that it no longer helps to track the time?
An imprisoned criminal
thinks of their crime;
do those imprisoned for loving
curse their love?
I feel the stone of injustice
like a weight on my chest.
Sometimes it hurts me to breathe,
me, the one who is free.
When I’m alone
a book keeps me company
as well as a crowd
but they have only the company
of their memories.
Twenty-four hours
with their childhoods,
the faces of their children,
of their husband or wife,
the muffled sounds of what was once
their daily lives.
rain falling on the garden,
the barking of their dogs.
Who will sound the trumpets
That tear down the walls?
Who will shatter the glass panes
of silence?
We must blow winds
that carry screams.
Steal the keys.
Bend the bars.
Cross over the dark impatience,
the prison of fear.
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