Perhaps...If We Listen
by Lorraine Caputo

    I. La Moneda

    Silent
    The balcony door ajar
    One main gate open
    _____soldier in the shadows

    The sand-grey walls
    Bleeding patches betraying
    _____those spring-day deeds
    __________25 years past

    Carabineros stroll in this
    _____bright summer sun
    __________& leaf mosaic
    Their barricades lay
    _____in neat stacks

    A semi-circle of a dozen flags
    _____lazily sway__& billow
    __________on a wind that
    _______________seems to whisper
    ____________________from that door

    Perhaps if I listen
    _____perhaps if we...
    Perhaps we could hear....

    _____
    II. Paseo Ahumado

    A small group
    _____behind a banner
    ANOTHER CHRISTMAS
    WITHOUT THE TRUTH
    MAY THEY TELL US
    WHERE THEY ARE

    Youth__& a few grey heads
    _____children__& many women
    One man carries a guitar case
    Placards aloft
    _____photocopied faces
    __________of the desaparecidos
    żDOŽNDE ESTAŽN?

    _____
    A middle-aged gent applauds
    _____their passage
    Mouth cupped, he yells
    Yes, thanks

    The disapproving looks of others
    The hastily dug-out
    _____& lit cigarettes

    A woman_black-bagged purchases
    _____dangling from a wrist
    She holds her son's fist
    _____rushing to join those ranks

    PINOCHET IS TO BLAME
    WHERE ARE THEY?

    Two elderly ladies walk
    _____the opposite way
    One nears, clapping her support
    Her friend raises her eyebrows

    A couple unites with the growing mass
    Their boy straddles the shoulders
    _____of his balding father

    As they all cross the street
    _____someone swerves his car
    __________towards a participant
    Communists
    Should be disappeared, too

    A grandmother grasps a girl's hand
    _____in the thin shade
    __________of a lamppost
    Her lips silently form their chant
    NO IMPUNITY
    BRING PINOCHET TO JUSTICE

    Joining more & more on the sidelines
    _____a young chap firmly beats
    _____the rhythm of this band
    OTRO NAVIDAD
    SIN LA VERDAD
    QUEŽ NOS DIGAN
    DOŽNDE ESTAŽN

    An old man hobbles
    _____next to me
    Where are they?
    In the bellies of fishes
    He mumbles_over & again
    _____in the rhythm
    __________of our steps






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