what are the themes in the poem to my brother miguel in memoriam by cesar valloje?

Question

what is the importance to my brother miguel in memoriam by cesar valloje

Answer 1

Seems this is a class assignment!

Read about his life here:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/30


Poem:
Brother, today I sit on the brick bench outside the house,
where you make a bottomless emptiness.
I remember we used to play at this hour of the day, and mama
would calm us: "There now, boys..."
Now I go hide
as before, from all these evening
prayers, and I hope that you will not find me.
In the parlor, the entrance hall, the corridors.
Later, you hide, and I do not find you.
I remember we made each other cry,
brother, in that game.

Miguel, you hid yourself
one night in August, nearly at daybreak,
but instead of laughing when you hid, you were sad.
And your other heart of those dead afternoons
is tired of looking and not finding you. And now
shadows fall on the soul.

Listen, brother, don't be too late
coming out. All right? Mama might worry.
**
Themes: politics, crackdown on the spectre of communists, the nostos and the algia of home, imprisonment and escape, repressive regimes and enforced hide/seek rat-race.

Vallejo was a communist. He is nostalgic about the events or hide &seek that they used to play and how their mom used to be worried when miguel was late coming home.
This is the sitution Vallejo now finds himself reliving, running away from his country to hide because of his marxist ideals.


- there is symbolic repetition in temporal terms.
brother used to go into hiding when they were kids:
"Miguel, you went into hiding" and Cesar never give him away.
Today, Cesar goes into hiding
"Now I go hide" and hopes the brother does not give him away also.

Answer 2

Loneliness.
Death (specifically through the eyes of a child).
Childhood playfulness/innocence.
Denial.