1
In my city of red horizon that trap the winds
and shelter the wings of monsters,
where a white salt marsh bars the land from bearing fruit,
and the tamarisk bush houses fear,
there are people who envision new skies to keep on living.
In my city of windows blurred by the dust of indifference
and the gray complicity of silence,
where streets have kept the indelible prints of the angel of death,
prints of genocidal boots,
there are people who vanish from earth,
yet were never allowed to meet new skies.
In my city of gloomy parks, where churches are siblings
to the killer crows, to terror,
where outrageous spokespersons, poison the air
and break all dreams that sprout anew,
there are people who never chose to live under new skies.
2
Imagine a farm house not far from this city,
not far from my house, you only have
to cross the park and take the road five miles.
Imagine this place many years ago,
built by Italian immigrants
who raise their children, who crop the earth,
the colors of this farm at that time
white clean walls, shades of green around
the fresh bread smell, the windmill on its grounds
Can you imagine the same farm house now
inhabited by the army, a sign that reads:
ALIANZA ANTICOMUNISTA ARGENTINA
The Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance ?
Can you imagine the corrosive mind
which named this place The Little School ?
the guards taking turns to torture bodies and brains ?
the farm transformed into a concentration camp ?
the gray walls spread with the smell of death ?
hundreds of places like that in my land ?
3
The children where ?
some were left with grandparents
many are not anymore
were killed with their mothers
were buried in hidden places
in common graves with them
were thrown from airplanes
into the river with them
The children why ?
babies in captivity born
were stolen by the murderers
after killing their mothers were adopted by the murderers
who killed their mothers
who killed their fathers
were given the name of the murderers
the ‘disappeared’ had only numbers
Now they call the murderers papá
When these children know what ?
.
