Baberitos All women of the world For the fundamental rights of women
For equality between men and women
I come from
yesterday from the dark past and forgotten
with their hands tied by the time
with mouth sealed since ancient times.
I have plenty of old pains,
collected for centuries, long chains dragging
and indestructible.
I come from the darkness of oblivion
well with silence on their backs, the ancestral fear
that has corroded my soul
from the beginning of time.
I come from being stoned for adultery
on the streets of Iran
by a mob of hypocrites, sinners
of all species crying out to heaven my punishment.
I have been mutilated in many towns
to deprive my body of pleasures and converted
in pack animal, and working
Birth "of the species.
I have violated no limit
in all corners of the planet that has
without my old age or amount or tender
my color or my height.
yesterday I had to serve the lords,
lend to their wishes,
surrender and give myself, destroy, forget
be one among thousands.
I was mistress of a lord, a marquis
wife and mistress of a Greek merchant,
prostitute in Bombay and the Philippines
and has always been just my treatment.
of one and the other always slave
of one and the other dependent
minor in all issues, invisible in the history
farthest
and forgotten in recent history.
I did not have the light of the alphabet. For many centuries
fertilizer with my tears I should cultivate land
from my childhood.
I traveled the world in thousands of lives
that have been handed
one by one.
And I have known all the men on the planet.
Large and small, brave and cowardly
,
the vile, the honest,
the good, the terrible.
More
almost all have the mark of the times. A handle
lives as lords and masters
suffocate, imprisoning and exterminating them. Others leave
souls dealers in ideas,
scare or seduce, manipulate and oppress
.
I know them all,
was about one and the other,
serving each day, picking up crumbs
,
down his neck at every turn,
doing my karma.
I traveled all the way
I scratched walls and tested silences
trying to meet the mandate be
as they want but not what I got.
never allowed me to choose
the course of my life.
I always walked a dilemma
be holy or prostitute.
I know the hatred of the inquisitors
that the name of the holy mother church condemned
my body to its service and infamous
flames of fire.
I've been called many ways:
witch, mad, guess, perverted,
ally of Satan,
slave of the flesh,
attractive, nymphomaniac,
guilty of the evils of the earth.
But I kept living, plowing, reaping
, sewing,
building, cooking, knitting,
healing, protecting, giving birth,
breeding, feeding, caring and above all loving
.
I populated the land of masters and slaves, rich and beggars
of geniuses and idiots, but they all had
heat of my body, my blood
their food and took a bit of my life.
I managed to survive the brutal and ruthless conquest
Castilla in the lands of America
but I lost my gods and my land and my belly bare
mestizo people
after the master took me by force. And on this continent
continued my existence defiled by Dolores
everyday
black and slave in the middle of the estate
I had to get the master
whenever I wanted without being able to express any complaint. Then I went
seamstress
peasant maid peasant, mother of many children
miserable peddler
, healer,
babysitter or elderly, hand craft
prodigious
weaver, embroiderer, worker, teacher,
secretary, nurse.
always serving all
converted into bee or sowing
meet most thankless tasks as pitcher
molded by the hands of others.
And one day I grieved for my troubles
one day I got tired of my chores,
left the desert and the ocean,
down from the mountains, jungles and crossed
confines and my voice became soft and quiet in
Wind Speaker
in universal cry and mad.
And I called the widow, the married women
the people, the single,
distraught mother, the ugly, the new mother
, the raped,
to the sad, the quiet, the beautiful,
to the poor, the afflicted, the ignorant,
to the faithful, to the deluded, the prostitute.
And we are with all our complaints
a mighty river that traverse the universe began choking
injustice and neglect.
The world froze
men and women stood
walked machines, lathes, large
buildings and factories
ministries and hotels, shops and offices,
hospitals and shops, homes and kitchens.
Women finally found out.
We are as powerful as they are
and many more on earth!
More than silence and more than the suffering!
More than more than infamy and misery!
that this song resonates in the distant lands of Indochina
in the warm sands of Africa,
in Alaska and Latin America,
calling for gender equality
to build a united world
different horizontal without power
to combine tenderness
peace and life, to drink of science without discrimination.
to defeat hatred and prejudice,
the power of a few petty
the borders,
kneading with the hands of both sexes
the bread of life.
1st. prize in the poetry of Gabriela Mistral
in Quito, Ecuador in 1992
