To Pablo Neruda for his Canto General
To Pablo Neruda for his Canto General
By
David Rogers Jr
Pampas of blood, deserts of sorrow.
Your land, Pablo, suffered like
The Forgotten in dictators’
Cells covering your continent,
A land shaped like an arrow
To the heart.
Your land, Pablo, of secrecy
And terror and deep green and
Brown beauty.
It seemed mystical, unreal,
A dream never to enter the heads of
Quiet Americans in Cleveland.
While you fought and bled
We norteamercanos read
With love, and relief,
That we were safe in
Democratic beds that
Satrap demons could not reach.
At times we squirmed at
Our familiar names.
Standard Oil. United Fruit.
Anaconda Mining Company.
You blasted wrath at us
For conformist greed and cruelty.
And forgave our forgotten peasant hearts.
Now, Pablo, we need you.
We did not listen or heed
Your traveler’s tales
Warning of hatred and
Failed magic of tribes
With stone bones and Amazon blood.
The satraps are here.
They clawed out of the pampas
Graves where your words
Buried them.
The pull the Dark Chariot
Of their corpulent Dictator.
We must fight but forgot how.
Soft on televised, digitized
Fractions of democracy
We forgot how to man the barricades,
Shout a poem into the
Mouth of a gun.
Now, Pablo, we need you.
Green ink tears water
My notes of fight poetry.
I will write them and shout them
With your Canto General
In my fist.
It is a poem of love and wrath,
A textbook for memory of the
Pachamama and quiet, strong
Peoples of the Earth.
Now Pablo, we need you.
Send your words to us.
