SocialistStories حكايات اشتراكية

Che 1997
by Mario Benedetti

They have covered him with posters / with placards
with voices on walls
with retroactive offenses
with honors that come too late

they have transformed him into a product
a trivial memory
a distant yesterday
a well-embalmed sense of rage

they have decided to use him as an epilogue
as the last gasp of useless innocence
as an aged archetype of a saint or satan

and perhaps they've discovered that the only way
to get rid of him
or let him fade away
is to suck the light out of him
make him into a marble
or plaster hero
which is to say motionless
like a myth
or silhouette or ghost
from the past

and yet che's unclosable eyes
keep staring at us as if they couldn't stop
maybe they're surprised that the world doesn't understand
that thirty years later he still fights
caringly and bravely for the joy of mankind

Liberation:

Che 1997 - Mario Benedetti.pdf