Here’s a grim coincidence.
When I heard that one of the three dead in Boston was an 8-year-old boy, I remembered what I had heard on the radio early in the afternoon, before the explosions.
Celeste Headlee was interviewing someone about the legacy of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and the guest read the last part of Neruda’s poem “Explico Algunas Cosas.”
Here’s how it went:
Y una mañana todo estaba ardiendo
y una mañana las hogueras
salían de la tierra
devorando seres,
y desde entonces fuego,
pólvora desde entonces,
y desde entonces sangre.
Bandidos con aviones y con moros,
bandidos con sortijas y duquesas,
bandidos con frailes negros bendiciendo
venían por el cielo a matar niños,
y por las calles la sangre de los niños
corría simplemente, como sangre de niños.Victim Martin Richard, 8.
Chacales que el chacal rechazaría,
piedras que el cardo seco mordería escupiendo,
víboras que las víboras odiaran!Frente a vosotros he visto la sangre
de España levantarse
para ahogaros en una sola ola
de orgullo y de cuchillos!Generales
traidores:
mirad mi casa muerta,
mirad España rota:
pero de cada casa muerta sale metal ardiendo
en vez de flores,
pero de cada hueco de España
sale España,
pero de cada niño muerto sale un fusil con ojos,
pero de cada crimen nacen balas
que os hallarán un día el sitio
del corazón.Preguntaréis por qué su poesía
no nos habla del sueño, de las hojas,
de los grandes volcanes de su país natal?Venid a ver la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver
la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver la sangre
por las calles!
And here it is in English:
And one morning it was all burning, and one morning bonfires sprang out of the earth, devouring humans. And from then on, fire, gunpowder from then on, and from then on blood. Bandidos with planes and Moors, bandidos with rings and duchesses, bandidos with black friars signing the cross, coming down from sky to kill children. And in the streets, the blood of children ran simply like blood of children.
Jackals the jackals would despise, stones that the dry thistle would bite and bit on and spit out, vipers that the vipers would abominate. Facing you, I have seen the blood of Spain rise up to drown you in a single wave of pride and knives. Traitors, generals: look at my dead house, look at Spain broken: from every house, burning metal comes out instead of flowers, from every crater of Spain comes Spain, from every dead child comes a rifle with eyes, from every crime bullets are born that one day will find out in due the sight of the heart.
You will ask: why doesn’t his poetry speak to us of dreams, of leaves, of the great volcanoes of his native land? Come and see the blood in the streets, come and see the blood in the streets, come and see the blood in the streets.
In Neruda’s day, the threat was fascist government. Today, in the West, it’s deluded individuals and small groups of lunatics.
