Problems with Hurricanes
by Victor Hernández Cruz
A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it’s not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I’ll tell you he said:
it’s the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.
How would your family
feel if they had to tell
The generations that you
got killed by a flying
Banana.
Death by drowning has honor
If the wind picked you up
and slammed you
Against a mountain boulder
This would not carry shame
But
to suffer a mango smashing
Your skull
or a plantain hitting your
Temple at 70 miles per hour
is the ultimate disgrace.
The campesino takes off his hat—
As a sign of respect
toward the fury of the wind
And says:
Don’t worry about the noise
Don’t worry about the water
Don’t worry about the wind—
If you are going out
beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things.
Victor Hernández Cruz was born in Puerto Rico and moved as a child to New York, where he grew up. He began writing at the age of fifteen, as he explained: “to balance a lot of worlds together…the culture of my parents and the new and modern culture of New York, its architecture, its art, and its fervent intellectual thought,” according to poets.org.
In the citation for the International Griffin Poetry Prize, the judges wrote, “Victor Hernández Cruz has long been the defining poet of that complex bridge between the Latino and mainland cultures of the US.” His other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.