Martin Espada’s tribute to his father

 

See more photos by Frank Espada at frankespada.com

Mad Love

by Martin Espada

No one wants to look at pictures of Puerto Ricans, Frank. – Cornell Capa

My brother said: They harvested his corneas. I imagined
the tweezers lifting the corneas from my father’s eyes,
delicate as the wings of butterflies mounted under glass.
I imagined the transplant, stitches finer than hair,
eyes fluttering awake to the brilliance of an open window.

–

Read rest of poem, plus more about Espada’s father, a community organizer and photographer, at PBS (scroll down)

Read a transcript of the PBS interview here.  Quote:

The poetry about my father is both elegiac and documentary. Poets often in these situations perform the function of preachers, right? People expect you to say something meaningful in this age where language has become divorced from meaning and we live in a time of hyper-euphemism.