Poem by our Friend Larisa Zehr

With

You know,

you can never replace it.

And no matter how much you try to fit in the suitcase,

it won't.

You will leave behind.

And we will never be as “in touch” as we promise

because you can't be in touch when you

aren't touching.

Colombia, and her stomach-churning

mountain roads and dusty beaches

her regional pride in the arepa

and nation of football critics

her heat of violence

and chill of displacement

will begin to fade.

Even if you come back,

even if you stay

it must be born again.

It will never be as fond as you remember.

But yet, despite all this

we know in our bones

that add ring after ring of years

that we live no lines.

Only the swoops and blind curves of circles.

It all comes back around.

Somehow.

Somehow, we will fit in the cracks in the suitcase

and you will take us flying.

The epic

and soft

helpless and hopeful

pieces of the many days

you have lived

they too are going with.