Victor Jara (1938-1973)

Son años pasados, presentes en mi,

Era ya en Santiago, y te conoci. .. .

Isabel Parra

So I'm here again, five feet away

from you, on the makeshift stage

of the Peña de los Parra,

and you're singing The Right to Live

in Peace, still in your actor's

leather jacket, embracing your shadow

in the guitar, the darkened room

taking its shape around you.

You tell us of Camilo Torres

and of Amanda-the young woman

who ran through your town's wet streets

to meet her lover, and found him

gunned down at the factory gates.

What do you think of us, students

hunching forward to listen

in the smoky light, glasses

of vino tinto beside us, the room

deep and wine-colored, Allende's photo

behind you on the wall? We follow

your lead, singing the choruses over

and over. We stand when you do, chanting

Otra! Otra! till you play another,

the fields of Chile in your voice,

your guitar speaking its human song.

I never talk to you then.

I'm shy as rain in your country,

the language too much yours.

You stand between sets

in the crowded patio, one

among many, those who sing

La Nueva Canciön. You're not even

one of my favorites.

Did you know then that shadows

would swallow the back galleries

like memories no one could get used to?

That you'd sleep in shifts

those last days, taking your turns

at the locked gate, the shortwave

radio crackling with surveillance?

You'd refuse the last chance

to destroy the tapes, your songs

filled with those who did what

they had to, lined up against walls

of the Estadio Nacional.

How could you believe it

when the time came, and your voice

grew too big for the cell

where they broke your hands

because they couldn't make you stop?

Once again it's September,

and I sit in this small kitchen

listening to Isabel Parra sing

Como una historia, her lament

for your death. Her voice breaks

in the tape, telling the names

that make nothing easier, our words

that cannot reach you, foghorns

sounding all night on the river

like a story from someone else's life.