I came upon Bolivar, one long morning,
in Madrid, at the entrance to the Fifth Regiment.
Father, I said to him, are you, or are you not, or who are you?
And, looking at the Mountain Barracks, he said:
"I awake every hundred years when the people awake."
When I first read these lines by Pablo Neruda in the late 1970s, they struck deep. I instantly agreed with Bolivar’s ghost: “I awake every hundred years when the people awake.”
Neruda wasn’t being snarky. He was a true man of the people. He was just exasperated with them for not fomenting rebellions as frequently as they should. Continue reading “Our Seniors are Revolting”