If winds blow over the coral islands and turn upside
the lonely caiques,
and parrots go wild with their voices when the day
ends and the gardens get serene drowned in humidity
and crows perch on the tall trees,
think, near the waves, the metal tables of the café
how in the darkness the wind ravages them and
faraway
the light is turned on and off, turns around and
then dawn comes, how terrible agony, after a night
without sleep
and the water discloses none of its secrets.
That’s life
and the sun rises, and the houses by the quay, with
the island rooms,
painted rosy and green, with white ledges (Naxos
and Chios)
This is
Bolivar!
Bolivar! I cry out your name, lying on the top of
Mount Ere, the highest peak on Hydra Island.
From here the view majestically extends up to
the Saronic islands, to Thebes, all the way
to Monemvasia, the great Egypt,
and to Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras,
Haiti, San Domingo, Bolivia, Columbia, Perou,
Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay,
Ecuador, even to Mexico.
With a hardened lithos, I incise your name in
stone, so that people may come and pay
their respects.
Libros Libertad 