"Within there is Nicaragua"

Because of its length, I only include an excerpt here, but I stumbled upon this beautiful poem tonight while working on my independent study. I was really inspired by a poetry reading that we were fortunate to be able to attend here in Esteli this evening.


Outside Times Ten,
 and One Within

By Yolanda Blanco


Outside

is the moon
whose breast gapes with wounds...

Outside

there's dirty linen shamelessly displayed

trash is deep
outside it's sickening

deep is the past
deep the future

there's dried up vomit
in the volcano's crater

field on field
of lamentation

there's Washington...

Outside

another outside
is being built

Within

joy is here within
deep within

dig
and water gushes

within there is Nicaragua.


What I find really important about the poem, written by another female Nicaraguan poet, is its complexity. It's hard to look at the horrors this country has witnessed, and the problems that linger and to be hopeful. But Blanco insists that these are things "outside" of Nicaragua.
Blanco has to dig through Nicaragua's fraught political history and its resulting problems to arrive at its true essence: a superhuman endurance. Through all its struggles, Nicaragua is not defeated. There is joy, and "deep is the future."