PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

In 1994 Two men parted ways
one across an angry water
that Castro had bid on
to execute his own, for him.
And as the sea reached up
and embraced the setting sun
with the dictators permission
the 33,000.00 set sail
on make shift boats
no stronger than paper cups
with dreams in hand
and lives in the trust
of a God they were forbidden
to believe in.

And on that Scorpion shore
hidden, a beautiful face
remained
among those mapped out streets
of his beloved Havana
stood strong, an old heart
a beautiful writer
a gifted artist.

and I thought it strange
how one said of the other
in his letter written to Ernesto
after one full year in Guantanamo

'Here in the US, you cannot make a living by art.'

and this is true somewhat
some can, and do very well
but in communist dictatorships
the writer, the artist is still the king.
even if propaganda rules his kingdom.

And Ernesto stayed in his Havana
with those beautiful strange things
that are only alive in Cuba:

The worlds smallest
and most beautiful things,

The Bee hummingbird,
that Neruda so fondly proclaimed
The Butterfly bat,
with the 5 inch wings
The Christmas Island Crabs
the cangrejo's
in their mass horny migration,
And then...
the beautiful, colorful faces
of his Cuban people.

The architecture
that old world feel
of molded plaster
in Cuban Colonial
that Hemingway loved,
and probably dreamed of
as he wasted away in Ketchum.

The symbolism, the people
Ernesto stood strong
and stayed even facing
those communist lines
that staved off starvation.

A poet is made
not of joy
but of suffering
and finding the ability
to experience the elation
through his pain and finding the beauty
in everything.

Ernesto
I wonder
if we would be reading you
today with quite as much awe
and admiration
had you left your Cuba,
like Mota...
his Caribbean Mother
nursed at the breast
of her jeweled and sparkling seas.

he floated away
as the sea reached up
like a giant octopus
and strangled the sun
that stood defiant
in Mota's way
toward his own career
in journalism
after his year
on Guantanamo bay?

I'm glad you stayed Ernesto
you are a beautiful soul
and your writing amazed my heart
awestruck you are a gift to this world
that only Cuba could have made for us.
(By Postpoems poetess Poppy2011).