Flying kite, the flag – Introduction (Cometa volandera, la bandera)

August came and left and not once I thought of the hot, windy afternoons I used to spent in that month during my childhood, making and flying kites, running free without a care in the world. Tonight I celebrate my 180^th blog entry with the introduction to the lovely poem Flying kite, the flag from my Dad’s book The celebrated afternoon (La tarde festejada). Tomorrow, the actual poem.

Flying kite, the flag – Introduction (Cometa volandera, la bandera)

To teach them how to say properly Motherland, Flag,

I taught my children a song

that I was taught on the rustic school desks

(poor little town school without whitewash on the walls,

with chairs of farmer craftsmanship, which,

on top of everything, were not enough for everyone).

Standing up, looking at one another with anxiety we could not hide,

a little teacher’s aide looked like she could be the sister of any of us.

When my children reached their use of reason,

after the concept of God, this is the first thing

that I endeavoured to teach them. This way they would

begin their knowledge with a prime concept of what

the Motherland and the Flag mean, how it rips you

to see them overshadowed. They could at least foresee them

full of light, of sun and of future from their innocence.

And when my children had grown up

and I saw them as whole men and women,

I let them know and comprehend that the Motherland in itself

is the sacred soil in which the bones of the parents sleep,

the seed of the grandchildren, the chained centuries of the history

of Colombia and the perspectives of our true civilisation…

and I endeavoured to write, with verses

and rhythms not used today, this poem.