In Memoria
Not only because I am the sister of my unforgettable Manolo, but because of something that moves my spirit every time I sit at the table at Estancia María Virgen.
I bring back a memory of her to respond to a friendly gesture she had towards me, back in ’73: She brought me a framed portrait of an old beggar sitting next to a barbed wire door, noticeably overcome by fatigue.
The moment was emotional when he assured me, and these were his words: “I brought you this because you believe in it and you are aware of the misery in which they are dying. Manolo must be happy, in the dimension in which he finds himself, with your positions. I bring it to you as a decoration, more than in my name, in their name, because you have defended them worthily.” I had resigned on December 10 from my vehement commitments in the Agrarian Social Program.
It was a experience surprising and I want to answer it in his memory by sheltering some poor verses mine: “The Old Peasant” and only some stanzas of the one who wrote the day after the death of Orlando Martinez“To Kill a Mockingbird.” This is something we discussed in that meeting with Enma.
In short, what I seek is to rescue the solidarity of his noble gesture.
Since we also talked that day about the death of Orlando, our glory of journalism, I bring only some of the stanzas, for reasons of space, of the poem that I wrote hours after burying him.
Orlando Martínez was murdered on March 17, 1975.
“TO KILL A NIGHTINGALE”
Orlando,
not even the bullet in the face
It warped your innocence.
It looked like a mole,
as if he felt
his horrible mission,
as if he had
lead conscience
of the noble life
that he was going to reap.
When I look into your coffin
I showed off its edges
like cliffs,
and,
great was my astonishment,
I found your expression
of peace and smile.
If they had seen you
who silenced you,
without regret
They would be ashamed!
there was no in your face
of a dead child,
no rictus
nor grimace,
nor hate
nor fear.
If only they had seen you!
they might think
that can follow
without fearing God
serving Satan.
With your sacrifice,
they did service
by sending him a fair
of this absurd homeland
as a rare example
of what is future.
The peasants
they ignore
that the tragic wind of crime
destroyed his best harvest,
what were you!
Further,
some day,
they will have the mirror
of his dead young man
innocent,
pure,
smiling,
honored,
for the immolation
in his immense cause.
Because you are,
you were not only,
secret heart
and distant
from our field.
They will already know
when tomorrow tears
of their ignorance the shadows
and be the joy and your luck
remember your example,
and live your name.
As a child,
when I went to the field,
my mother
He scolded me:
Who kills a Nightingale
his slingshot breaks!
I obeyed candidly
the pious deception.
who killed you
and so they ordered
Orlando,
they will lose their slings
the day they don’t wait
because,
besides heart,
you were Nightingale
of that sleepless drama.
And the Motherland,
today absurd
and suffering,
will not know how to lie,
nor forget
to do
with the slings
of the murderers
of his Nightingales.”
Likewise, I am going to reproduce the other one because it closely corresponds to the gesture and peasant poverty:
“OLD PEASANT
It is the bower
a lying pylon,
the old man sitting
broods and grumbles.
The clay pipe
smoking his kettle.
Nameless wrinkles
his eyes
smoke blues
They rain on the field.
his face
cloudy with fatigue
seems to say
Are we the ones from the countryside?
forgotten children?
Where is your hand?
Has hunger cut her off?
did the fever burn her
of my helplessness?
Did cunning glove her
of the powerful?
does it only have index
for misfortune?
Where has God gone?
he seemed to say.
I have centuries
to the rear
unable to sleep
on the hard cot,
dominating ants,
stuck between thorns,
wasps, death
and amazement.
It’s the baquiní
of all my people
the usual party.
And I have never stopped
to make the rosary!
Where has God gone?
This land of yours
just receive me
if I happen to be dead
or when I bend
it is to cross it
and make riches
and give food
for so many people
who does not hear the rosary.
Where is your hand, Lord?
Have they left you crippled?
these crazy men?
Seeing him ruminate
his tobacco and sorrow,
I wanted to say something,
I stopped crying,
I made silence
a beautiful tribute.
I felt inside
a strange guilt
and stuttering
I muttered these phrases.
Old man, He will come,
is already housed
in your disconsolation;
they will come out of it
light and strength
with that your storm
everything will calm down.
You will see his hand,
your scrawny grandchildren
on your ashes
They will be your flags.
You won’t see them,
at least here.
I returned to silence
praying for him
and misfortune
of his dark race.
Lord, Lord,
forget the aftertaste
of this old rag,
He is a Just One, after all.
A Just who ignores
that the man’s watch
“You never give your time.”
This way of responding 53 years later is strange, but it has one merit: it kills oblivion.
The immense cause that I so often cite as one of “my beloved defeats”, the Social Agrarian, if it had not been betrayed and contained by the worst interests, would have served for a more balanced and just Republic. We are now reaping seriously disturbing bloodshed and insecurity. I warned it in time.
