Why do this?

My father, José Luis Villamizar Melo, passed away in my home town of Cúcuta, Colombia, in August last year. The law and economics were Dad's profession, but literature, history and academia his passion. He wrote and published several books, articles and book chapters. The thing is that so many people have missed out on his work, particularly on his beautiful poetry, which he wrote in Spanish prior to the world wide web. So I thought, what a better way to keep Dad's legacy alive than to bring his writing beyond his world and share it with mine. That is why I am translating over 250 of my Dad's poems to English and publishing them here, one a day, Monday to Friday during 2011 (Dad, a family man, always believed that you shouldn't work on weekends).



Sunday, November 13, 2011

The promise (La promesa)

With all my love, eight years later.  From my own book ‘untitled’.

The promise (La promesa)

In weakness and strength,
happiness and sorrow,
a promise many make
without hesitation
in a moment when the heart
feels too large for the chest
and the future seems
like a cloudless sky.

Nevertheless
the promise changes,
it evolves
into a carefully made decision.

The clouds sometimes block the sun
and often bring with them
a merciless storm…
But the secret is to wait
for the soul to dry off
and let the tears vanish
like the fear to what will happen
goes away
and life carries on
with the (uncertain) certainty
that the one we made the promise to
will be there by our side
for many more winters
through many more storms.
at 10:45 AM

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