By Juan Grajales, current leader of LAG
Behind were left the mountains and jungles, the hills crowned with bromeliads, the flocks of birds vanishing into the black storm clouds of an instant downpour.
Behind was left the land—brown, soft, and fertile—from which trees and animals sprouted, and so many blue, red, and green birds that gracefully imitated the voice of life.
Behind was left the city that sheltered, with concrete, other forests of the past; the tall glass buildings lost in the gray tide of asbestos rooftops; the irregular streets, the bare-brick houses piled on the slopes of memory, the daily bustle of the markets, the midday heat that made the asphalt shimmer and life unbearable, and the coolness of the evening reviving the entire world. Behind were left your neighbors, sitting in front of their homes, fanning away the last sweat of the afternoon, listening on the radio to the miraculous mix of cheerful music and a newscast, also delivered in a cheerful voice, recounting the week’s latest horrors.
Behind were left your friends—with your same brown eyes, your same black hair, your same scars from a bad bike ride, the scraped knees of a happy childhood, and hearts dulled by the terrible fever of youth. The fever of hope.
Behind were left the barricaded streets, with yellow tape waving in the breeze of oblivion, and the walls freshly painted, still dripping, where once there had been graffiti and murals. Behind was left the cry for mercy, the raised hands, the pellets, the blood, and the air corrupted by tear gas.
Behind were left your notebooks, your pencils, your shoes.
Behind was left your first love.
Behind was left the immense Atlantic—furious and shoreless—that erased your past with blue brushstrokes, like an uncertain haven, like a fake calm, like a sorrow without origin.
Behind was left the warmth of the wind, the scattered clouds, the sudden downpours.
Behind was left the chant of “The people, united, will never be defeated.”
You arrived in a strange world, with different glances and a sky without birds.
The hours were changed, time inverted, the stars disordered, and the wind blows from the other side.
What remains here, then, is a tree without its root.
A person without origin, a gaze without a past.
Your story became uncertain, like the memory of a bad dream, like a bitter taste in the mouth.
And it is because you carry tattooed in your soul the names of those who did not surrender.
It is that heartbeat—deaf and confused—that breaks the silence of the fjords, rides the winds, crosses the Atlantic, and rains back on your forests, your mountains, your street, and your home.
The rain of your tears washes away the ashes of your scorched life.
Behind was left your high sun, Mexican.
Behind was left your jungle, Brazilian.
Behind were your saltpeter mines, Chilean.
Behind were your valleys and the warm sob of the Magdalena River, Colombian.
Behind was left the gray haven of rain over the Paraná, Argentine.
Behind were left the song, the rain, and the pain.
Behind was left the hope, dear Latin American.
Now begins the exile.