Voices from the South

The once dictator, died today. He died at an old age, surrounded by by his family, and was never tried on court for what he did.

The year he oeverthrew the democratice goverment of his country, the poet died with agony and pain, for the fate of his land.

It was a dark time. It was 1973.

There was a young man who fled the country with his family soon after, like many others, going on exile. That led him to Spain, where he wrote and died young.

But history shall remember the names of the poet and the writer, Neruda and Blano, for their words of truth and passion and love. Yet the dictator will be forgotten and hated by those whose sons and daughters disappered without a trace under his rule.

Are you smiling somewhere, my Chilean men of words, for you see, it is your voices that will be remembered and celebrated for a long long time, not the dictators, never has been, never will be, your voice and your pain and your way of making it heard from afar:

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as certain dark things are loved,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and

carries hidden within itself the light of those flowers,

and thanks to your love, darkly in my body

lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you simply, without problems or pride:

I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate

that your hand upon my chest is my hand,

so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.