On July 1, President Obama announced that the United States had agreed to formally re-establish diplomatic relations with the Republic of Cuba and re-open embassies in our respective countries.
Today, more than 54 years after the flag came down, “[w]atched over by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Marines raised the American flag at the embassy in Cuba… symbolically ushering in an era of renewed diplomatic relations between the two Cold War-era foes.”
While the speeches and the ceremonies were memorable, perhaps nothing captures the essence of this “return to Havana” more profoundly than the words of a poem by famous Cuban-American poet Richard Blanco who wrote the poem for that occasion and read it prior to the raising of the American flag.
Richard Blanco, born to a Cuban exile family and raised in Miami, was also the inaugural poet at President Obama’s second inauguration.
When asked by NPR’s Robert Siegel how Blanco felt about this “assignment,” the poet answered:
In some ways, this was one of the easiest and one of the hardest. And part of it, I think there’s a lot of – more political complexities involved, and it’s a lot closer to me. But the inspiration that first came to me was this idea of those 90 miles that everyone always sort of talks about that’s almost at this point cliché – you know, the 90 miles between these two countries that might as well be 9,000 miles. So I started thinking about that and how to make that something not about separation, but about unification. And so it’s the sea that separates us, but it’s also the sea that unites us.
Here it is, “Matters Of the Sea” or “Cosas Del Mar” from a “rush transcript” by Grabien.com.:
For the people of both our country who believed that not even the sea could keep us from one another. Matters of the sea, the sea doesn’t matter, what matters is this. We all belong to the sea between us. All of us. Once and still the same child who marvels over star fish. Listens to hollow shells. Sculpts dreams. We’ve all been lovers, holding hands. Strolling down either of our shores. Our foot prints like a mirage of cells vanished in waves that don’t know they’re birth or care on which country they break. They break. They bless us and return to the sea. Home to all our silent wishes. No one is the other to the other to the sea whether on hemmed island or vast continent, remember our grandfathers.
Their hands dug deep into red or brown Earth. Planting maple or mango trees that out live them. Our grandmothers counting years while dusting photos for their wedding days. Our mothers teaching us how to reach in Spanish or English. How to tie our shoes, how to gather falls colors or bite into a guava. Our fathers warmed by the weight of clouds clocking in at factories or cutting sugar cane to earn a new life for us.
My cousins and I now scouting the same stars above skyscrapers or palms waiting for time to stop and begin again when rain falls. Washes its way through river or street back to the sea. No matter what anthem we sing we’ve all walked barefoot and bare soul among the soar and dive of sea gulls cries. We’ve offered our sorrows and hopes up to the sea. Our lips anointed by the same spray of salt latent wind. We’ve all cupped seashells up to our ears.
Listen again to the echo. Today the sea still telling us the end to all our doubts and fears is to gaze into the lucid blues of our shared Verizon. To breathe together, to heal together.
Thank you.
Lead photo: U.S. flag raised at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba (Courtesy U.S. State Department)
Edit: Please read here about the three American Marines who lowered the American flag in Havana in 1961 and have now returned to Cuba to help raise the flag once again.
