forty years on -- after novoneyra

the birds that marked your death were shrieking bats
we might not see their like for a whole year
their voices gave us the news that we did fear
of heroes turned up dead after the last combats
brave men despised far worse than stinking rats
youth charm and hope that filled the mountain air
lie dead and bloody now beyond all human care
while the nameless hunter with his masters chats
heroes die like ordinary men the andes did not sink
when you stopped breathing though overhead the birds
chant lamentation for the passing of their kind
we know that afterwards vast seas of purple ink
will be expended over you that a new war of words
will explode in your name as you lie dumb and blind