Chapultepec

Reyna Paniagua was born in Mexico City on October 24, in the year (of our Lord) 1953. Native of the suburb of Santa Maria la Ribera, she studied against her will in many schools run by nuns until senior high school. She then studied Medicine willingly at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), specializing in psychiatry and psychoanalysis until the 1980s. She later studied Literature in the 90s, and completed a Masters in Comparative Literature in 2006.

The place is there
nothing has changed
a crestfallen sun still brightens the grasslands
silence spreads its cloak over the asphalt

for two thousand years the place has been there
a stony niche of dethroned emperors
resting in the shade of the Mexican cypress
which under the weight of its grief
is finally vanquished
its leaves swaying,
tears that scatter its sadness

the place is there
nothing has changed
niche of exterminated grandeur
fire extinguished by lead
drowned in blood,
fertile land devoid of seed or harvest
in silence its promise will remain
cradle of arrows never fired

the place is there
nothing has changed

Editor’s Note: Chapultepec (“hill of the grasshoppers” in Nahuatl) is a vast public park in the heart of Mexico City of great historical significance. It was the final refuge of the fallen Toltec emperor Hueymac in the 11th century, and a royal retreat for the Aztec poet-king Nezahualcoyotl in the 15th. The palace of the viceroys was located there during the Spanish colonial era, and Chapultepec Castle, the home of the ill-fated Mexican Emperor Maximilian I (1864-1867), still stands there today.