Chris Luza, Perú, HONOURABLE MENTION
If scripture is a river
I would like us always to remember it this way, in motion,
as when we laugh or cry together, as a herd.
If scripture is a river,
let us also remember that freedom cannot be measured in papers.
We all come from the sea, and if our veins ever cease to pulse,
the islands, like our sisters, will not stop screaming.
If a river is scripture,
may Perseus and Olympus remain in their heroic pantheon,
and may the political prisoners of my country soon be released to remember.
If to remake the uncertainty of the present, we need these and more gods,
may the eternal trench of struggle not tear our conviction apart.
If each letter in this poem is a mountain chain,
may the heights of my hills remind my verses
of the tremor of Bartolina Sisa and Tupac Amaru.
If the complexities of the world made me long for company,
may the words of the river then not lead me to judge.
And if ever I lack memory,
may the gusts of the red wind bathe my veins
and my eyes with salt to stop, together, in national strike.
If two fruits of the same species confuse their gait,
may the somatic manifestations remind us all
that there are those of us who escape the names of humanity.
Be it the river, the writing, the wind, or the mountain,
may the veins of this earth always call us animals:
like the fox, the condor, the goat, or the dissident viscacha.
And if the river is an ancestral scripture, may the previous version of the future justice,
be loudly cried out in the material realm,
because the colonial legislative tongue will not overcome this claim.
If scripture is a river,
my pores will always guess
when the passion for suspicion
overflows the edge of my brows.
And if language is not a scripture,
the river and my jet-black eyes will carve their way
through the Inca stones,
until I discover that Paititi exists,
and that the head of Inkarri also beats when we shout:
“from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”
If each letter is a mountain chain,
may the volcanoes of rage never be extinguished
to the rhythm of José José.
If a river is scripture,
may the Andean Icarus not be lost in the echo of its ambiguous fluttering,
but instead reach the Sun to share it with all.
If memory were only a construction of the human intellect,
may it all end then, and let the flesh be left without spirit.
If the immensity of that uncertainty makes you bend,
may the lips of the glasses remind you of your inner spiraling water.
And if the sea finally finds us,
may it welcome us as in the beginning of time,
in a single, same land,
crossed by letters that will not tire,
on the shores of a new world,
in the face of a newly invented fear,
the fear of watching fiction walk toward the path of history.
About the videopoem:
Through visual footage captured during the Champería, a traditional water festival that celebrates the reciprocity between the community of San Pedro de Casta, the water, and its territory, this videopoem explores the principles of the relational ontology of the Andean world in a clear connection with some of the social struggles that impacted my writing at the end of 2024.
