REVOLUTION

The wind is the apostle of this forbidden hour.
O faded eras
that shook off their final autumns—!
Their remembrance senses hopeless impending
horizons of birds,
and corollas defoliate their keyboard.

Absolute wind blows against cosmic
matter; music
is the propaganda that floats in balconies,
and the landscape stands out
in weathervanes.

Wind, iron
dictatorship
that thrills the confederations—!
O the blue
and resounding
masses, that rise
up to their hearts—!

Evening is a bloody mutiny
on the outskirts;
ragged trees
that cry out for alms in windows;
industrial plants swelter
in the conflagration of dusk,
and in the brilliant sky
aircraft
execute vesperal maneuvers.

Rousing banners
will repeat their proletarian harangue
facing the cities.

At the romantic meeting of departure,
where we all weep
today I garner respite from her rendezvous;
the season
ripped to pieces remains within her hands,
and her swoon
is the high point of the farewell.
I kiss the photograph of her memory
and the terrified train moves off within shadow,
while I strip the leaves off new paths.

Soon we will come to the mountains.
O gentle geography
of our Mexico,
her avionic landscapes,
ineffable heights of political
economy; smoke of factories
lost in the fog
of time,
and eclectic rumors
of uprisings.
Night inside
the soldiers,
they tear
folk songs
from their breasts.

The enemy
artillery, it spies on us
at the margins of Nature;
subterranean noises
people our fear
and the scene collapses.

Military trains
that go toward the four cardinal points,

to the baptism with blood
where all is confusion,
and drunken men
play at cards
and at human sacrifice;
loud and martial trains
where we make singing Revolution.

Never have I felt so close to death as now.
We pass the evening alongside the intact light of reminiscence,
but the others arrive without warning
extinguishing the concept of things,
the tender images at the edge of the horoscope.

There, far away,
pregnant women
have stayed behind petitioning
for us
to the Stone Crucifixes.

After the massacre
the wind once again
shoos away
the fallen leaves of dreams.

I shake the daybreak of my verses
over enemy hearts,
and the icy touch of centuries
strokes me on the forehead,
while the anguish of silence
flows through the essences of cherished names.