WITS Voices: Enough with Maimed Dreams
March 14, 2018
By Evelin Garcia, WITS Writer-in-Residence
The following poem made me reflect on the fact that if I did not take the challenge of teaching poetry with WITS, someone else would do it, and that although the challenge was great, I still did it.
Enough with maimed dreams
On the road of life,
transiting among others in the crowd
blindly lost I go,
trying that nothing crumbles.
Through the road of routines
it becomes a vicious cycle
where even the music hurts
and the fruitless work returns.
Every piano key hammering into my temples
breaking up my thoughts
tell me dream: where do you come from?
I thought I knew you since a long time ago.
Real dreams, not utopic ones
I’ve always wanted to achieve them.
Will life be enough
so I can enjoy from some of them?
Let those passed dreams,
those that’ll never see the future,
stored still in the chest
give way to those sure ones.
I feel mine very close,
like a feast, just right
the dream that keeps me wake
rubs on my hands, and I smile with joy.
Let it be displayed on the face without stopping
let the heart speak through a smile
let the lips speak with ease
and that this dream be in no hurry to be finished.
Let it sit still
those that don’t want to keep going
enough with maimed dreams
if it’s not you, someone else will dare.
Another poem emerged to me in my classes that I shared as an example for my students. One of our themes was about the personification of feelings, and this is the poem that came to my mind. I wrote this one in Puesta del Sol in the middle of a day class.
Happiness
Happiness is a cheerful-eyed girl
With rainbow hair and lips like a rose petal.
Happiness plays, plays and plays,
does not know how to do anything else
Happiness walks through the park,
smiles, runs and jumps when the sun rises.
Happiness flies like comets,
rides a bicycle and laughs if she falls.
Happiness sleeps smiling at the moon,
in the arms of her mom when it becomes a cradle.
Happiness is a girl like no one.
Evelin Garcia is a poet and independent Spanish tutor. She received a degree in Public Relations and Communications in her native country, El Salvador. She is the author of two self-published books, Corazon Guerrero and Poemas para una tarde de domingo. She is also part of Seattle Escribe, a group of Spanish-speaking authors in Seattle. Evelin was twice selected to be part of the Poetry on Buses Project, and recently selected to be part of the first anthology of Seattle Escribe.