Diana Morales Poet Narrative

My Grandmother’s Yuca Farm

100 hours, thousands of deaths. 
My great uncle lost an eye that day. 
An intense war briefly subsided 
for the yet to come 12 year atrocity. 

My parents’ parents fought against 
the guerillas, losing their voices. 
Helicopters and bullets flew 
alongside Torogoz and the wells 
overflowed with blood that rained 
from the sky that day.

Bits and pieces of our neighbors 
piled on my mother’s homelands. 
Men camouflaged with masked principles,
terrors of the nights tore into the hearts 
of their own people leading 
to mass destruction. 

The economy crashed raising 
poverty from the dirt roads.
The colón was too little to fulfill 
the hunger in its bottomless bellies. 
The cries of the motherless 
mothers grieved for their children, 
as they were taken one by one. 

Each of my uncles, aunts, 
cousins, mother and father ran 
to the borders concealing their breaths 
under the stars in the midst of coyotes. 
Part of each one died and buried 
in their childhood home underneath
the mango tree that took my mom’s arm. 

Roses and Izotes fill my father’s garden. 
God, Union, Liberty, flag of my origin
stands side by side decades past
Bravery, Purity, Justice, flag adopted
into my family.

In camouflage, my great uncles 
and grandfathers served,
and my brother pledged fealty 
to the United States. 
Following in their footsteps, 
I wish to be a symbol 
of my parents' grief and hope,
and my country’s resilience.

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