El Olvido y el Polvo (A poem inspired by 2 plays and a documentary)

   

    Straight out of a Kundera novel:
    Some kind of national Alzheimer's.
    It's not so much the astronomical lies,
    But the subtle erosion of the facts.

    Don't recall, didn't record,
    What remains?
    Repeat.

    The past is a desert that blooms only in our mind.
    Yet the arid mentality preserves everything.
    And recent souvenirs gather dust.
    Could we sweep the desert with those telescopes?

    Altered surnames
    Under the carpet
    Don't remind us, you're holding us back.

    Don't dig up the past, the builder said to the archaeologist.
    Don't pick at those scabs, the doctor said to the patient.
    Don't stir things up, said the sour cream to the spilt milk.

    Talk about a social canyon, a mental rift,
    When you walk along the same streets as your torturers,
    And women still search for fragments of their sons -
    buried hastily like pre-hispanic traditions.
    Native arts and human rights hidden away in museums
    along with memory itself.
    Skeletons of white stardust interred below our sight.
    We're busy papering over cracks, hiding from the stargaze.
    They're gravedigging for truth.

    The bonds that tie us to the past are tough but we can't see them,
    like cords that hold your hands behind your back.

    Closets full of secrets and unanswered questions.
    Haunted to the bone by history.
    What might turn up, what might turn out?
    In the midden of Pisagua.
    Can such wounds be reconciled? Demanding justice, can we forgive? 
    Witnesses soon will pass away, 
    and perception itself is as ephemeral as a passing wave.
    Will the past ever rest in peace?