WE ARE YOU PROJECT
Nilda Cepero
CARIBBEAN GYPSY
A wounded spirit who can bear?
~ Proverbs
I learned to care for you
Boston
one snowflake at a time
later to love you
I tamed the fierceness of the Northern winds
In Caribbean blood
In your arms, though fugitively
I felt at home
but like a Gypsy I
move on when least expected
leaving behind a trail of emotions
as life becomes an incessant passage
Today—to Miami
to be one step closer to the island of my roots
—a psychological need, they say—
I'm going through a second exile as I
abandon the place that saw me blossom
while discovering myself slowly,
lovingly. Bridges, rivers, lakes, parks
landmarks I know better than my own birthplace
City of long, frosty winters and pumpkin autumns
a garland of roses in spring
emerald green by Mystic Lake in summer
of Irish parades and Italian festivals
unaware you shaped half of my soul
by sharing unselfishly the Charles, Walden Pond,
Longfellow and Thoreau, and now
I realize some of my roots
also grew into your soil
something I swore would never happen
the day I landed on your shores
But life is unpredictable
Tonight, looking down Blue Hill, you lay at my feet
blanketed with cotton-like puff. I'm in awe
How splendid you look! And
for a moment I find myself in a blitz
of misgivings
The story repeats itself and I wonder:
how long can these threads endure?
Fragmented
I walk away as I leave behind
one more bit of my heart
Nilda Cepero is an exciting Hispanic voice who writes with honesty and passion. Raised in Boston, she now makes her home in Coral Gables and Barcelona. Editor of LSR (Latino Stuff Review) from 1990-2005, and Ambos Mundos (2004-present), her writings have appeared in literary journals and textbooks in the US and Europe. An accomplished photographer and singer, she had her first exhibition, Paris: Poetic Images of Night and Dawn, at the Alliance Françoise in 2007; she recorded Nilda: Live at Jensen’s to promote the traditional Cuban bolero. Her previous books are Sugar Cane Blues (1997), Lil’ Havana Blues (1998), A Blues Cantata (1999), Bohemian Canticles (2009), and Hemingway: The Last Daiquiri (2012).
DELIVERED
To Cubans in exile
They shall write the epilogue
The harvest is past, the summer is ended
and we are not saved
~Jeremiah
To be finally free
to inhale the winds of the tropics
on the wrong side of the Gulf
To be cuddled by a foreign land
yet feel unprotected
To be capable of going everywhere
and not where I wish to go
To feel a tightness around my hands
my feet and my heart
albeit nothing binds me
To celebrate holidays that are not mine to feast
To be unrestrained to express every word
but have my sounds drawn by silence
To be a hostage of design
riding in a merry-go-around of circumstance
while clinching to my need:
to be free
IS IT ENOUGH?
Yes, I am proud, I must be proud to see
men not afraid of God, afraid of me
~Alexander Pope
Thank you!, thank you!, thank you!
How many times must I say it?
Must you always remind me
of all you've done?
Did I come empty handed?
Have you not profited from my past?
I've seen you ordering “black beans
and plátanos maduros, por favor”
You have borrowed my words, my music
my sons and daughters, never to return them again
I have not heard you say thank you
Thank you