Juan Pablo Jalisco's World of Poetry

HEROES OF THE REVOLUTION

(Tierra y libertad!) (Land and freedom!), a slogan of the Mexican Revolution 1910-1920

In a field upon my grandfather’s farm, in a village I shall not name,

Are the sad and constant reminders of the day the revolution came.

Seventy five simple wooden crosses, aged and weathered by the sun

Stand in silent tribute to those who perished by the gun.

No names adorn these crosses, instead, inscribed upon each one,

Five words of stark remembrance to, ‘A Hero of the Revolution’.

Were they soldiers of the Government, maybe followers of Zapata?

And after all these years have passed, does it really matter?

For these were men, women and children, the future of Mexico,

But in this field their futures ended many years ago.

It wasn’t a great battle, what happened here did not decide

The course of the revolution, but they were people, and here they died.

Did they fight until the last man fell, believing in their cause,

As many men have fought and died in many other wars?

Here they found their final peace, beneath this dusty earth,

Their names cast upon the wind, over the land of their birth.

My grandfather told me the story of the day the revolution came,

And I shall tell you the tale of those who lie here, buried without a name.

Two small forces met here in the summer of nineteen-fourteen,

Both intent on controlling the village, and the people were caught in between.

In the heat of a murderous crossfire the villagers died one by one,

And the soldiers continued regardless until the battle was won.

As the dust and the smoke of the battle receded, a grim sight was slowly revealed,

Along with the dead of the enemy lay the villagers, in the carnage of that small battlefield.

Their names were unknown to the soldiers, who laid them side by side,

With the fallen combatants of the enemy, also unknown, here, in this field, where they died.

Slowly, new inhabitants came, the village was born again,

But those crosses remind each generation of man’s inhumanity to men.

My grandfather was one who came to the village, and found the crosses bare of inscription,

Knowing nothing of those who lay ‘neath the ground he sought an apt description.

Then lovingly, and with painstaking care, he set to work with grim resolution,

And that’s why each cross came to bear the words, ‘A Hero of the Revolution’.