Los hijos de la arcilla vieron rota
su sonrisa, golpeada
su frágil estatura de venados,
y aun en la muerte no entendían.
Fueron amarrados y heridos,
fueron quemados y abrasados,
fueron mordidos y enterrados.
Y cuando el tiempo dio su vuelta de vals
bailando en las palmeras,
el salón verde estaba vacío.
Sólo quedaban huesos
rígidamente colocados
en forma de cruz, para mayor
gloria de Dios y de los hombres.
De las gredas mayorales
y el ramaje de Sotavento
hasta las agrupadas coralinas
fue cortando el cuchillo de Narváez.
Aquí la cruz, aquí el rosario,
aquí la Virgen del Garrote.
La alhaja de Colón, Cuba fosfórica,
recibió el estandarte y las rodillas
en su arena mojada.
Spring 2015
The sons of clay saw
his smile broken ;
his delicate deer-like form smashed.
And even in death they did not understand.
They were lashed and injured
burned and torn,
killed and buried.
And when the time came to leave
the others danced among the palms
and the green salon was empty.
Only the bones remained
collected jaggedly
in the form of the cross for the greater
glory of God and men.
From the great clay hills
and the branches of Sotavento
to the gathered reefs of coral,
Narvaez’s knife cut them down.
Here the Cross, here the rosary
here the Virgin of the Garrote.
The jewel of Columbus, Cuba phosphorescent,
received the standard and their knees
in her wet sand.
[Tr. Stephen Zelnick]
At first it was gold, then silver, dug out of the earth
by overwhelmed and dispirited native workers and enslaved
Africans. Conditions were brutal, but added to the
torments were poisonous chemicals and deadly dust
sapping the workers’ lives. By the turn of the 19th C.
however, the spirit of rebellion had spread from the
Colonial revolution in North America and the French
revolution. Toussaint L’Ouverture (Haiti), Bernardo
O’Higgins (Chile), San Martin (Argentina), and Simon
Bolivar (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia)
led armies against the dwindling force of Spain to liberate
their people and install constitutional governments. But
driving these revolutions was the fierce insurrectionary
anger of those submerged by history. In “America
Insurrecta” Neruda recounts the process and events.
The Linnet's Wings