A song for Bolivar.

• Author: Neruda, Pablo
• Position: LATITUDES - Poem

Our father who art in the earth, in the water, in the air of all our great and silent breadth, all bears thy name, father, in our land: thy name the sugarcane raises to the sweetness, Bolivar tin has a Bolivar brilliance, the Bolivar bird over the Bolivar volcano, the potato, the saltpeter, the special shadows, the currents, the veins of phosphoric stone, all that is ours comes from thine extinguished life, thy heritage was rivers, plains, bell towers, thy heritage is this day our daily bread, father. Thy little brave captain's corpse has stretched to immensity its metallic form, suddenly thy fingers spread out through the snow and the southern fisher suddenly brings to light thy smile, thy voice throbbing in the nets. What color will be the rose that we lift next to thy heart? Red will be the rose that remembers thy step. How will the hands be that touch thine ashes? Red will be the hands that in thine ashes are born. And how is the seed of thy dead heart? Red is the seed of thy living heart. That is why there is today the circle of hands next to thee. Next to my hand there is another and another next to it, and still another, to the depths of the dark continent. And another hand that thou didst not then know comes also, Bolivar, to clasp thy hand from Teruel, from Madrid, from the Jarama, from the Ebro, from the prison, from the air, from the Spanish dead arrives this red hand that is a daughter of thine. Captain, fighter, where one mouth shouts liberty, where one ear listens, where one red soldier smashes a dark forehead, where one...