September 11th…1973…Victor Jara

Did I dream,
Sweat upon the stiff pillow,
That this sudden day would come?

Dragged from the everyday
From the piquant street-food
From the deep-throated laughter
Of ebullient comrades
Around the café table
From the touch of her silken hand
As she, in her own sleep-heaviness
Stroked my arm until I fell again
Into the normalcy of sleep

Will I sleep again
To be smoothed by her touch
Will I sing again
Here in this sudden stadium
Where democracy’s gravediggers strut

Will I sing again
Fingers on the guitar
Like hers upon my arm
Gentling me back to sleep

Will these unexpected guns
Slung over careless shoulders
Pointing like accusing fingers
Make the singing stop

Will I sing again
On raised stool in humid café
Or atop an upturned crate in factory yard
Or on sombre stage in village hall

Or will this host of weaponed hatred
Force from my scratched throat
The song I do not wish to sing
A song of betrayal
Of where she is
She who gentled my arm in the night
And now surely hugs shadows in the streets
Asking my whereabouts
She and all those spared
Through fate or luck or sudden skill
The herding into this stadium of death

No, I cannot go from this life twice
Once by loss of breath and once
By loss of song

I shall adjust my eyes to this pallid dawn
I shall accept the truncated future
I shall reach for the guitar
Humbly, as I reach for death

The singing shall not stop here
Shall not be suddenly silenced
By these sudden guns
In this sudden stadium

This song shall escape above these bleachers of death
Beyond the silenced voices that gave it birth
Above the shadowed streets
To find her where she could not find me