I come from love, holding hands,
from those who sleep embraced in the bed of miracles.
I come from a place where people dream
and love with the fire of the soul,
as in books.
I belong to the unlawfulness of days,
entangled too quickly with my own thirst,
a direct descendant of my own poverty.
If only you knew how much frost I left behind where I set off from,
how much rain fell — it was all mud.
And I had neither shelter nor roof.
How many times I have fallen to the ground, wounded,
and how often I have seen my blood flow from my wounds.
But the same water that drowned us, washed me,
and so I have come to you so clean.
I come from the boundless pain into which I was born,
like all creatures on this earth.
There I was taught to gather and to give
along the way;
to keep nothing for myself and to travel
freely.
And so, I have flowers;
I have fruits.
I have flesh as well.
I change like the seasons, one after the other,
and with them.
Even though the pain from where I come never lets me go,
and holds my hand like a mother or like a curse,
and wherever I go it leaves traces in the lives yet to come,
I am here now,
smiling
as if at a celebration,
raising my glass and dancing
on this new land;
I bow to the Sun,
to life,
to breath and to anxiety,
and I cannot find the words to express my wonder
at where I come from.
