Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 44 No. 5. March 30 1981
To A Woman Held Prisoner In Chile
To A Woman Held Prisoner In Chile
It is the dark days, sign
Of the encompassing vulture
And anaconda coiling, guilefully through the land.
A German shepherd stalks your prison cavern
With swastika legs spreading out,
Obedient to the private language of the guards.
Soon, the bestial soldier is thrust
Into you, brave flower of Santiago.
Perhaps, you have not screamed
As a victim would, bled
So much as a martyr before the lions.
Perhaps you have simply gritted
Your teeth and clenched your fists,
Thinking of comrades and the flowers
Of the Andes, in unspoken communion
With Chileans on mountains and plains
Believed with them that these dogs
Must have an end, these geniuses
Of the
falanga
1, prod and truncheon.
It is the dark days, terror
Reveals your captors' canine teeth.
Frothing, many times have they taken you, O mother
Of the land and daughter to freedom,
Taken by all manners of dogs
Into all chasms of darkness!
It is the dark days, brave
companera
2,
But your struggle yearns to go on!
Oh, flower of Santiago!
As the petals fall.
Grow your thistles with the bloodsap
You have given to the violated earth.
Edgar Maranan