¿Y Qué Hacer? by Claire Joysmith
Claire Joysmith, born in Mexico, writes in both English and Spanish, often intertwining both. Central to her life and work is a passion for inter-cultural ⁄ -linguistic communication that promotes more human understanding. An academic ⁄ teacher by trade, a translator by conviction and a writer / poet by urgent need, her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies across the Americas, and includes three volumes of poetry.
Author Foreword:
The poem focuses on the thousands of feminicide victims in Mexico (eleven daily, statistics claim), and elsewhere in the world. And how this suffering is translated into stories that feed the news and our lives. The repetitive chorus-like questions grow into the poem in the Spanish language as a political identification of the poetic voice in an ongoing quest for ⁄ questioning of justice in Mexico— and elsewhere. The victims’ suffering is exponentially multiplied to include the perpetrators, the families of the victims, and society at large. Compassionate containment as well as individual and collective action are of course required.
To the victims of feminicide
in México and countless
others elsewhere.
The stars count them,
telling their stories.
A thousand and one nights
could not account for them
nor tell a thousand and one
Scheherezadian stories
for sheer survival.
¿Y qué hacer?*
The victim dies in agony
once
unravelling karmic knots.
¿Y qué hacer?
The perpetrator dies
a thousand and one
times in deep ignorance:
his karma seared for
a thousand and one
years to come.
¿Y qué hacer?
The family grieves, weeping,
a thousand and one times,
replicating sorrow,
perhaps hatred,
their karma suspended
between options.
¿Y qué hacer?
How many nights of unabated rage
can be held in a single glass of water
and a sugarcoated sleeping pill?
¿Y qué hacer?
Questions burst into life
as the relentless future
seeds in our now.
Who is to receive
multiple compassion?
¿Y qué haré ⁄ mos?
And what will I ⁄ we do?
*And what to do?
