Maleva and the Children in Paradise

MALEVA AND THE CHILDREN IN PARADISE

To Carolina, Estela and Chiqui

The only paradises not forbidden to man
are those that are lost.
J.L. Borges

In the garden,
further back, Maleva sees
children falling from the trees.

Those innocent children
that we once were
diapered in white
fall from the trees.
But they fall to their deaths
so that we may forget.
And they laugh as they fall
because they enjoy in advance
the sorrow to come
the despair that
soon or late
we all succumb to.

The death of these children
is not predestined.
They prefigure it in the oddness
of their games.
Before, whether an instant or
two hundred centuries ago,
the children invented games
as if nostalgic for earlier children.

(The first, the last that return
to begin the lines
now invent nothing, they shout
mummymeat mummymeat we want
the head on the shield.)
Who pretend to be the last
Who are the first.

The children
whether an instant
or two hundred centuries ago
came into the garden
with roles assigned.
They fall from the trees.
They fall

Soleida Rios

Posted over on Poems & Poetics