Eduardo
Galeano Poems
Fires
Each
person shines with their own light
among all
the others.
There are
not two equal fires.
There are
big fires and small fires
and fires
of all colors.
There are
people of serene fire, who don't even know about the wind,
and there
are people of crazy fire, who fill the air with sparks.
Some
fires, silly fires,
they do
not light or burn;
but they
burn life with so much desire
that you
can't look at them without blinking,
and
whoever approaches, lights up.
THE
SYSTEM
The officials
do not work.
Politicians
speak but do not say.
Voters
vote, but do not choose.
The media
misinforms.
Schools
teach to ignore.
The
judges condemn the victims.
The
military is at war with his countrymen.
Police
officers do not fight crimes, because they are busy committing them.
Bankruptcies
are socialized, profits are privatized.
Money is
freer than people are.
People
are at the service of things.
CHRISTMAS
EVE
On
Christmas Eve, he stayed up working very late. The rockets were already
ringing, and the fireworks were beginning to light up the sky, when Fernando
decided to leave. At his house, they were waiting for him to celebrate.
He made
one last tour of the rooms, seeing if everything is in order, and he was doing
that when he felt that some footsteps were following him. A few steps of
cotton; he turned and discovered that one of the sick was behind him. In the
gloom he recognized it. He was a boy who was alone.
Fernando
recognized his face, already scarred by death, and those eyes that apologized
or perhaps asked for permission.
Fernando
approached and the boy touched him with his hand:
"Tell..."
the boy whispered. Tell someone, I am here.
TRIP
Oriol
Vall, who takes care of newborns at a Barcelona hospital, says that the first
human gesture is a hug. After going out into the world, at the beginning of
their days, babies wave their hands, as if looking for someone.
Other
doctors, who deal with those already lived, say that the old, at the end of
their days, die wanting to raise their arms.
And
that's how it is, no matter how many turns we give to the matter, and no matter
how many words we put into it. To that, as simple as that, everything is reduced:
between two flaps, without further explanation, the trip takes place.
THE
GLOBAL FEAR
Those who
work are afraid of losing their jobs.
And those
who don't work are afraid of never finding a job.
Who is
not afraid of hunger, is afraid of food.
Motorists
are afraid to walk and pedestrians are afraid of being hit.
Democracy
is afraid to remember and language is afraid to say.
The
civilians fear the militaries. The military are afraid of the lack of weapons.
Weapons
are afraid of the lack of war.
It is the
time of fear.
Fear of
the woman to the violence of the man and fear of the man to the woman without
fear.
Fear of
robbers and fear of the police.
Fear of
the door without a lock.
To time
without clocks.
To the
child without television.
Fear of
the night without pills to sleep and the morning without pills to wake up.
Fear of
loneliness and fear of the crowd.
Fear of
what was.
Fear of
what will be.
Fear of
dying
fear of
living
FEAR
RULES
We
inhabit a world governed by fear, fear rules, power eats fear, what power would
be without fear without the fear that power itself generates to perpetuate
itself.
Hunger
breakfast fear.
The fear
of silence that stuns the streets.
Fear
threatens.
If you love,
you will have AIDS.
If you smoke,
you will get cancer.
If you breathe,
you will have contamination.
If you drink,
you will have accidents.
If you eat,
you will have cholesterol.
If he talks,
he will have unemployment.
If you walk,
you will have violence.
If you think,
you will have anguish.
If you
doubt it will be madness.
If you feel,
you will have loneliness.
THE
FATHER
Vera
missed school. She stayed locked up at home all day. In the evening, she wrote
a letter to her father. Vera's father was very sick, in the hospital. She
wrote:
—I tell you
to love yourself, to take care of yourself, to protect yourself, to pamper
yourself, to sit down, to love yourself, to enjoy yourself. I tell you that I
love you, I take care of you, I protect you, I pamper you, I feel you, I love
you, I enjoy you.
Héctor
Carnevale lasted a few more days. Then, with the letter from his daughter under
his pillow, he went away in his sleep.
THE
GRAPE AND THE WINE
A man
from the vineyards spoke, in agony, in Marcela's ear. Before dying, he revealed
a secret to her: "The grape," she whispered to him, "is made of
wine."
Marcela
Pérez-Silva told me about it, and I thought: If the grape is made of wine,
perhaps we are the words that tell what we are.
CRY
It was in
the jungle, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The Shuar Indians were mourning a dying
grandmother. They wept sitting, on the edge of her agony. A witness, coming
from other worlds, asked:
"Why
are they crying in front of her, if she's still alive?"
And those
who wept answered:
"So
that she knows that we love her very much."
DEATH
Not even
ten people went to the last recitals of the Spanish poet Blas de Otero. But
when Blas de Otero died, many thousands of people attended his funeral tribute
in a Madrid bullring. He did not find out.
With
affection,
Ruben
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