(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.