Memory (Memoria)

Photo of the monument to Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander,

taken by Hector Javier Cespedes Zapata http://www.flickr.com/photos/ectorzapata/4969469188/

Here is another reference to the Independence heroes of my country, Francisco de Paula Santander and Simón Bolívar. From my Dad’s book Variations for an epopee (Variaciones para una epopeya).

  

Memory (Memoria)

To the bronze that the artist smelted

time will give a guiding polish,

and the cardinal points

that gave you the dimensions of symbol

in front of the vocation of a subjugated town,

commander sometimes

and convict with shackles and jail keepers in other occasions,

in exile and magistracy,

and before in the freezing silence of the Andes

leader of a peasant army

toward the nameless freedom

that your juvenile dreams foresaw.

The Motherland was your objective.

And you started to feel it in the half-lit shelter

of the ancestral house,

with an open code…Student of the laws

you understood which was your path.

And it was your encounter

with Mr Simón Bolívar

fiery sparkle

that had to start the fire.