For Orlando

Once I will visit you

he said

in your mountain

today

assassinated

blown to pieces

he has come to stay

he lived in many places

and he died everywhere

in this room

he has come between the pages

of open books

there's not a single apple

on the trees

loaded with fruit this year

which he has not counted

apples the colour of gifts

he faces death no more

there's not a precipice

over which his corpse

has not been hurled

the silence of his voice

tidy and sweet as the leaf of a beech

will be safe in the forest

I never heard him speak

in his mother tongue

except when he named the names

of patriots

the clouds race over the grass

faster than sheep

never lost

he consulted the compass of his heart

always accurate

took bearings from the needle of Chile

and the eye of Santiago

through which he has now passed.

Before the fortress of injustice

he brought many together

with the delicacy of reason

and spoke there

of what must be done

amongst the rocks

not by giants

but by women and men

they blew him to pieces

because he was too coherent

they made the bomb

because he was too fastidious

what his assassins whisper to themselves

his voice could never have said

afraid of his belief

in history

they chose the day

of his murder.

He has come

as the season turns

at the moment of the blood red rowenberry

he endured the time without seasons

which belongs to the torturers

he will be here too

in the spring

every spring

until the seasons returning

explode

in Santiago.