Víctor Rojas (Colombia)

Por: Víctor Rojas

Prayer of a refugee child

Lord
I am a child tired of running
scared of the roads and of the shadows of the night

I have slept on pillows of stone
gazing at the stars

Perhaps, Lord, You are prowling
from star to star
like a refugee child
and people leer at You
and kick You
and ask for your identity papers
and remove You from your teddy bear
and your wooden tractor

I hope they don't...
The stars twinkle, Lord
and I want to believe that they are your eyes
trying to wake up

The corpse of my father
was left in the garden
next to the cherry tree

My mother cries and caresses my curls
and folds my hands and covers me with her body

My eyes don't know anything else
than the flames that embrace everything

we are walking
walking
walking and the fire is pursuing us

There is no more room on your Earth, Lord

The roads are seeded
with tears and mines
and where the roads end
they claim there is no room
for children with faces like scarecrows

I am tired, Lord
I have forgotten the stories
of pirates and blue whales
that my grandfather told us
in the times before the war

Lord,
when my mother and I
arrive at the end of the road
tell people that my feet are blisters
ready to burst
Tell them that I am little
and the world is big

Tell them
that I want to play again
the blind hen
and London Bridge is falling down
how will we build it up
with eggshell, with eggshell

Tell them
that it is a lie that You have drawn
on the Earth
lines to separate mankind

Víctor Rojas was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1953. He studied law and political science. For two decades he has been living in Sweden, where he obtained a Master of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of Gothenburg. He has performed as professor, cultural journalist and publisher. At the present time he works as inspector of supervised freedom in the Department of Criminology of Sweden. In 1996 he published his first book: Los suicidas no van al cielo. Then they have been published the books: Poemas para un pájaro ciego; Sin curar mis heridas; Mientras los vikingos saquean en París; and Palabras en remojo. He is also author of the books Un grito en la tierra and Textos de la bruma nórdica. He received the annual prize of culture from the city of Jönköping, (1997), the Prize Klas of Vylder of the Federation of Swedish Writers (1998), the Literary Prize of the Academy of Småland (2000) and the ABF Prize of the region of Jönköping (2002), for his work as translator of Swedish authors' into Spanish.