Cadiz

What did you bury here,
What did you leave so deep in the ground
That dirt tattooed under your fingernails?

It wasn't a perfect funeral,
Nor a funeral at all.
You simply threw it under the eucalyptus leaves and hoped it would sleep in peace.
You carved into the tree with your teeth.
You carved: Don't come back.

What made you feel so much has left,
Has become decrepit in old age,
Has longed to be back just as much as you.

Eucalyptus leaves cover that place,
Long and bony.
You want to throw gravel and dance in it.
You want to swim.
You want to walk through fruited flowers and be happy. But you can't. You can't.

Temptation tugs at your years,
Begging to be fed.
You're begging too, tears pulled out of the well you dug,
Each droplet a letter of "I miss you."

You let it be robbed.
You let it be destroyed.
What made you leave it so cleanly?
You let it be desecrated from the inside.

You are leaving it still.
You see your family in need but there isn't a shovel in sight.

Soft and wet, dark coffee colored soil.
You could dig forever.
You should dig forever.
For all the time you buried alive,
A little self-flagellation wouldn't hurt,
The dirt against your back like a cold cold rein.

If somebody died here, speak.
The mourning rains dig plenty deep,
Dig plenty well.
A single daughter you were,
Curled inside the womb of roots
Sinking slowly as you cried.
Like a babe, you clutched to your chest
One red tile
One pebble
And a bouquet of eucalyptus leaves.

The best way to grieve is to live with it
Live in it
Die in it if you must.
Bury your soul until it can walk again.
As a second birth, a birth in reverse,
You can and you will be able to breathe.
Be not afraid of the soil that still clings.
Be not afraid of your home.