Exile.

• Author: Mutis, Alvaro
• Position: Latitudes - Poem

Voice of exile, voice of a dried-up well, orphan voice, vast voice that arises like tenacious grass or the hoof of an animal, the deaf voice of exile, today it has welled up like a thick blood meekly claiming a rightful place in some part of the world. today it has called up in me the screech of passing birds in a green tumult over the growing coffee, the stately banana leaves, over the icy spray that descends from the plains, beating and sounding and carrying with it the pulped flesh of coffee and the thick flowers of the cambulos.

Today, something has taken root in me. Suddenly, a heavy torpor sets in motion, sweetly, slowly, certain days, certain hours from the past, saved on the ruffled surface of its waters, to which are fiercely fastened the most secret and vital matter of my life. They float now like logs of the lightest balsa, serene evidence of faithful witnesses, and welcome them in to the long present of exile. In cafes, in the house of friends, they come back, in a kind of faded sorrow, Teruel, Jarama, Madrid, Irun, Somosierra, Valencia, and later, Perpignan, Algiers, Dakar...