The past arrives like a reluctant visitor,
in a hurry to leave as soon as he arrives,
but when allowed to spend an hour,
ends up sleeping for many days in a row.
Sometimes, it’s a man from a distant land,
who travelled through rivers and forests,
whose eyes are weak, whose legs are limp,
whose body is broken and is eager to rest;
allow it to rest in your house to gather strength
and continue its journey to cities beyond the sky,
it invents a reason to love your bed.
Sometimes, it’s an old friend you lost years ago,
who resides in another country and at another time;
suddenly, he reappears and says he has moved on
and he is no longer who he was.
You embrace him with warmth and love
and provide him access to your house and meals
but he surprises you when he pops out
to be the same old wolf and fox you knew.
The birches shiver when an ancient bird returns,
to suck its nectars and hide in its nests,
and rocks under a sudden metamorphosis
when dying leaves grow in its crannies,
staggering the old boulders into anxiety.
My cousin visited me the other day,
screaming that he saw the Lord on his way,
who told him that his past sins had expired;
his past went down the drain of time
and old things buried in him like his ancestors;
God’s grace made him a new creature.
The past he killed appeared to him in my room
when a friend who owed him two hundred pounds
arrived from a distant land with a large baggage.
I found myself in the middle of the cocks,
restraining them from shooting each other.
So, I’m wandering about with this husk
when my past arrives like a fly and overtakes me