Resurrection Dawn

(San Salvador, El Salvador – 1998)


Four-thirty

I crawl out of the hazes of my sleep

Explosions echo through the streets & alleys


Where am I?

San Salvador.

The Revolution.

The city is under attack?



I walk out to the back patio

            where the resounding is clearer

The volcano is lost in the dusty haze

            of the nearing end of this dry season

Only the brightest of stars are visible


Blast follows rocket blast

The early morning traffic hums

Singing fills the darkness


It is Easter Sunday



& I wonder during those 10, 12 years of war

            when a curfew blanketed the night

How could these people celebrate the Resurrection?

Could they have those fireworks

            those songs?

Could their procession wind

            down these full-moon streets?


& I wonder of those deep in their sleep

What do they feel       they fear

            with each rocket exploding?

Do their dreams

            turn to nightmares?


The pre-dawn sky lightens

            with the tolling of church bells

The gunshots of firecrackers pop-pop

            through the alleys & streets

 


Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 200 journals in Canada, the US, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa; and 14 chapbooks of poetry – including Caribbean Nights (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), Notes from the Patagonia (dancing girl press, 2017) and On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. In March 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada chose her verse as poem of the month. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She travels through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.