RECONQUISTA

You conquer the world by strolling,
by taking a walk beneath a divine sunset,
inmolation of a barren land,
a phoenix blows up.

You conquer the World by talking
with its inhabitants,
finding a tomb on their faces,
a shared cradle.

You conquer the World by gathering our memories like gems below the sea.

But the World retaliates.

It conquers us in an iridescent glow,
through a horizon bloated
with the blood from all of us.
Smithereens of humanity,
broken up by war and exodus.

The airborne fire incinerates the sky behind me.

The village vanquished:
its magical songs,
the enormous arabic halls —hybrid chimeras of stone—
A divine, golden amphorae,
treasures from arcane times.

A mutilated flower grounds upon itself
in ash-red powder
in the middle of Nothing,
sandstone roasted by a nuke.

The sun-burnt land radiates in our history,
in our memories.

You conquer
the World
by strolling,
in dialogue with its inhabitants,
gathering memories like gems
below the sea.

You conquer the world by counting Time,
the time it takes daylight to obliterate your soul.

Conquer the World with your eyes gazing the horizon—crimson sunset—and remembering how the final blow reminisces the beginning of Everything!

You conquer the World
not with weapons nor fire.
You conquer the World by strolling,
by listening to the echo,
the echoing of the immense abyss
that lies between you and me.



Hernán Luvina
Hugo Morales Zendejas