In the month of February, my town burned…

One February afternoon fire engulfed the poor of my village.
The infernal dance of the flames
took away their lives, their stories, their memories.
The hills of Viña del Mar were stained with horror,
time stood still and there was no time to escape,
no water, no road.
Burnt bodies, aborted dreams.
For them there are no safe territories to inhabit,
behind the shell dwells dignity.
Behind the Garden City, there dwells the real Chile
the one that hurts the soul, the one that was consumed in a minute.
The one with the open wound,
the invisible one,
the one that lives in camps and ravines.
Dark interests behind death,
Unscrupulous real estate companies
Savage capitalism that depredates,
native forest annihilated.
Mother earth groans
O God, you welcomed the last sighs of the innocent,
their names in your womb.
The hills were transformed into a holy mountain,
only reverent silence is our offering.
And in spite of everything, my people stand up,
tanned in suffering, in collective tragedies,
the neighbors organize, the young people unite,
and the shovel and the common pot begin to sing,
And all of us with our little grain of sand
we help to raise hope.

Sister Jacqueline Sothers, MDR