For Enrique Santos Molano

For more than a hundred years
you have been a victim
of us your friends
of our fantasies and prejudices
of our complexes and needs
Fellow citizens intellectuals admirers functionaries
we have dragged you along with our deficiencies
speeches and nonsense

We transformed you
- a man of flesh and blood -
into a caricature in our own
image and likeness poor
and haughty
Your contemporaries
wounded you - in your absence -
with barbed darts of gold and red sobriquets
You were admired for what you never were
Your were punished - already dead -
by ascribing a history to you
that was never yours.

We accused you of squandering
a fortune that you never had
of being a dandy
a casanova
incestuous
in love with death
a queer fellow
exotic
unfit for life
. . .
Weaknesses and defects
that are secret vengeances
Over a hundred years
we have struggled so that at the end you resemble
us - the owners of your ashes
Your integrity
irritates and shames us
Your dignity
offends
those who have preferred
other ways
Your discreet greatness
is a treasure
that adorns the occult ambitions
of us your heirs

We turned your history
into a black and sentimental history

We ridiculed you
so that we did not have to strive too much
to squander fortunes and virtues - belonging to others
so that people will not see that we are dead
We applauded you we rejected you
we jeered at you we praised you
we extolled you we defeated you
we made you kill yourself . . .
hypocritical and satisfied

What music afflicted your soul
what truths did you sense
what high star
burnt your blood
in order to transform you into such an enemy?

We would have to burn
as you did in your life - which is only one life
to know about it.

Translation: 2005, Nicolás Suescún