Aghast
Furious

'Let us go on, to vanquish the indignities'.
Ernesto Che Guevara

Here are we
aghast
furious
even though this death may have been
one of those foreseeable absurdities
. . . . . . .
you are our troubled conscience
they say that you were burnt
with which fire
are they going to burn the decent
the good news
the irascible tenderness
that you brought and carried
with your cough
and your clay

they say that they reduced to ashes
all of your vocation
except for one finger

This is enough to show us the path
in order to denounce the monster and its stain
to squeeze the trigger once more

Mario Benedetti
Montevideo, October, 1967.

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