Tears of the Tiger

Mariposa Fernández

I’d hear the song

again and again
in my mind
haunting
sad

like the cold winds
of change blowing
reminding me that we
are in the dead of winter

the ground frozen
our past buried
but I’d hear the song
and it would remind me

to write the poem which I kept
forgetting to write
the poem
I knew I must write
before the spirit of song
escaped my memory
before I’d forget
it’s melancholy story

I’d hear the song
again and again
haunting me
reminding me
of the past not dead
but buried deep within
the ice-cold earth
but living
like the seed lives
to birth itself in the spring
like the caterpillar lives in the cocoon
to one day manifest glorious butterfly wings

But it is deep pain
that I feel as Tio sings
of a cold story
deep seeded in shame

alive in the vital mind
of el viejito negrito
each chord coated in pain

Marintaya
Marintaya
Mis hermanos me llaman asi

The dark story of
the many thousands
who came

Me ven pobre

Looking for dreams
but finding misery

Me ven triste

They were told they would find streets of gold
but found only the cold and poverty

y toditos se rien de mi

Looking for sense of brotherhood and home
but instead they were greeted
by the cruel laughter of
los que llevan muchos años aqui

y toditos se rien de mi

Looking for brotherhood
but finding cold stares
on Barrio corners
where they stood

Having already made the frightening trip
from the waterfront downtown

Up from the harbor
Up from Puerto Rico
to cold Nueva Yol
streets, they came.

They came every fourteen days Tío said
like cattle they came.
All year round they came.
And in winter they wore nothing but
worn guayaveras, thin shawls
panama hats and white shoes.

They came young and old
like lost flocks of birds
to shiver in the cold…
on cold Barrio corners

Where the children of
the unfeeling Puerto Ricans
the assimilated
the established
threw rocks
and called them names

¡Jibaro! ¡Marintaya! ¡Oye Marintaya!

The tears of the tigers
are now frozen
like their bones in
St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx

Or Calvary in Queens
where graves were offered cheap
to the lost children
of La Isla Borinquen

The tears of the tigers
still fall like the lost falling aguaceros
of lost dreams
like the lost story

Of our forced tragic exodus
Lost like their names
Lost to amnesia
the amnesia of shame…

¡Marintaya!
¡Marintaya!

Mis hermanos me llaman asi
Me ven pobre
Me ven triste
y toditos se rien de mi.

No me importa que me llaman asi

Puerto Rico no tiene bandera
¡Ay bendito! ¿Que será de mi?

Puerto Rico no tiene bandera.

¡Ay Borinquen! ¿Que será de ti?