Somos árboles levantado

(Somos árboles levantado,
nacemos debajo del sol de dios
y somos unas estrellas de esperanza)

Though now we sit on wooden rights…
that shake in cindery flight,
the broken souls of half-forgotten men-
a haunting, common sight…

the tears of our fathers have changed to fit
a stranger’s mirror with pain,
resisting all their bones could stall,
until they were the same –

chained and feared through hidden walls,
on desecrated lands…
a thousand days of winter haze
upon a summer land…

though now we sing Germanic songs,
and emptiness abounds,
from words that speak of lifted voices
and dreams above the clouds…

though we are trees and these, our hands,
are cut and burnt by silver spoons-
and fed to steel beasts with skyline plans
to never sleep or wake to truth.

-A forest lays in waste,
in slumber for what once was,
a glimpse upon the face of time
and all that passed in soot.

Rest for now, dear Aztlan-
your ruined hush still proud;
the blood that once was free and red
still walks in children’s eyes-

and trees will grow and flood these streets,
and test the chains they’ve made,

till water soothes again the roots
of a people strong and brave…

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry