Unsung Heroes11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKHCEJlBV57
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXd1KSH4ekC
Although I stand on the shoulders of giants,
I fail to see much farther than the bridge of my nose.
The fault in mine. The shame is mine.
For I am unworthy of you, my beloved dead.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXfYGd6MMHr
Part I: Emilio (Maternal Grandfather)
Your crime was literacy,
And the possession of a social conscience,
That made you yearn to see your beloved Spain remain free,
And prevented you from suffering fascists lightly.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuxVsWeoOpC
You did not bear arms,
For you abhorred all violence,
You did not incite rebellion, though you
Rebelled against the foreign and domestic enemies of freedom.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbK3GjyG8oT
As best I can tell you were an idealist who,
In a time of darkness,
Clung passionately to the belief,
In the perfectibility of the human spirit.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcuRtmHbvNX
You would not abide the lies the regional papers carried,
And translated news from American and British newspapers,
About the gathering storm,
Sharing the truth freely with all who would listen.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvoSmrC2G9S
You gave speeches, and wrote speeches delivered by others, in support of a doomed
Republic collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption.
You were warned by friends of your imminent arrest and offered passage back to the U.S. or to Buenos Aires where so many of your friends had already found refuge.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG0kTYiZvMx
But they would not get your wife and nine children out,
And you refused to leave them to their fate.
They came for you, as always, in the middle of the night,
These cowards with stern faces hiding behind machine guns.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0LWgOAiCbb
They took you prisoner, not for the first time, to the Castillo de San Anton,
A fortress by a most beautiful, tranquil bay,
Where they tore out your nails, one by one, and that their
Gentlest caress while they asked you for names.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeTYHCSq7vW
You endured, God knows what there, for months,
And were sentenced to be shot as a traitor at La Plaza de María Pita.
But the Republic had friends, even among the officers of the fascist forces,
And one of them opened your cell door on the eve of your execution.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZc6ImhZR1y
You had contracted tuberculosis by then, yet, according to grandmother, you
Managed to swim miles across the bay in a moonless night, to safety in the home of Another patriot who risked his life and the lives of his family to hide you in
His cellar and made a trip of many miles on foot to find your wife.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSyp4o2onOu
He found your home and told your wife of your unexpected reprieve,
And asked her to send some clothing and some shoes to replace your dirty rags.
You eldest daughter, Maria, insisted in accompanying the stranger back on foot, taking Clothing, and what provisions she could quickly gather and carry to you.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnzpHwD1yXU
From time to time you accepted the hospitality of an overnight stay
In the attic or hay loft of a Republican sympathizer as these were not hard to
Find in the fiercely independent Galicia under the yoke of one of its own.
But mostly you lived in the woods, with active guerrillas for years.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtw3O0KBhTb
You lived with all the comforts of a hunted animal with others who would not yield,
Whose greatest crime consisted of being on the wrong side of a lost cause.
I hope it brought you some comfort to know you were on the right side of history.
It brought none to your wife and none to your youngest children.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx713yi3RgG
As you paid your long penance for your conscience, once a month or so, after some
Time passed, you visited your wife and children. You were introduced to the little ones
As an uncle from afar. They did not know the bearded wild man who paid these visits
In the middle of the night and left wearing dad’s old, clean clothes.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMCjnaIiBCh
The older ones, Maria, Josefa, Juan and Toñita, all in their teens, told the little ones
That their “uncle” brought news of their dad. The younger children, still wearing the
Frayed cloaks of their innocence, accepted this, not questioning why he stayed in
Mom’s room all night and was gone before they awoke the next morning.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡupDRVpXHZl
Your grief at playing the part of a stranger in your own home, of not embracing your
Children on whom you doted, one and all, for their protection and yours, as there were
No shortage of fascists who tried to ply them with pastries and candy,
Seeking to use their innocence as a weapon against you.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoiU5sDY1wo
Your parents were relatively wealthy business owners who farmed the sea but
Disowned you—perhaps for your politics, perhaps for choosing to emigrate and
Refusing to join the family business, or perhaps for marrying for love in New York City
A hard-working girl beneath your social station in their eyes.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbFikwVhw4o
You lived just long enough to see Spain delivered from war,
Though not freed of its chains.
You were spared the war’s aftermath.
Your wife and children were not.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbzMOUmiAuu
No books record your name. Most of those who knew you are dead.
Yet flowers have long perpetually appeared on your simple above-ground burial site in
Sada that holds your ashes, and those of your eldest son, Juan, and second-Eldest daughter, Toñita, who died much younger than even you.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZV45FusTp1
Your wife has joined you there, in a place where
Honor, goodness, decency, principle and a pure,
Broken heart,
Now rest in peace.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOotunBCHzC
You can hear my Spotify reading of this poem by clicking HERE:11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ64JSQBn1qo
