This is such a beautiful poem by Amado Hernandez. Strange that very little effort has been made to translate it in English and Spanish, so many more people can appreciate Hernandez's genius. This was the best I could find in the web and it's a rather rough translation. Subersibo pa ba siya hanggang ngayon)? I think his politics, communism! sucks, though. He should have stuck to being a poet and a writer.
__________
An Arm's Length Piece of the Sky
I am held by an evil leader
seeking to cage my thoughts,
a body weak, he says, is surrender,
emotions suppressed, advocacy hindered.
I am kept in a cruel place:
rock, steel, bullets, ferocious guards;
isolated from the world
alive, treated as dead.
From the little window, my sole consolation
is an arm's length piece of the sky, full of tears,
a paltry handkerchip to dress a wounded heart,
flag of my misfortune.
Sharp as lightning are the guards' eyes,
at the gates, with keys, no one can go near;
the scream from a nearby cell
resembles a cave animal's howl.
Days pass like a chain
dragged along by bloody feet,
the nights are a blanket of sorrow
in the coffin-like realm of the jail.
Sometimes, quiet footsteps pass,
with a line ofrattling, clinking chains;
to the pale sun momentarily exposed,
a thousand shadows escape.
Sometimes, the night is awakened
by an alarm - an escapee! - gunfire!
sometimes the old bell cries,
at the execution den, someone lies dying.
And this is my only world now-
the prison house, a graveyard of the living;
ten, twenty, and all of my years
my whole life will be here.
But a resolute mind knows not fear nor agony
and hope still springs in my heart:
imprisonment is part of the struggle,
jail, the fate of the embattled.
Man and God do not sleep
the unfortunate won't stay oppressed,
tyranny has a price to pay,
while a Bastille exists, people will resist.
And tomorrow, in this very place, I will see
an arm's length piece of the sky with no more tears,
Hernandez was a journalist and labor organizer who led the biggest labor strike to hit Manila in 1947 and another massive one in 1948.
The Philippine military started a crackdown against the communist movement in 1950. Hernandez was arrested on the suspicion that he was one of the leaders. He was imprisoned for 5 years.
It was in jail that he would write his most notable works, Isang Dipang Langit (An Arm's Length Piece of the Sky), and the novels Luha ng Buwaya (Tears of the Crocodile) and portions of Ibong Mandaragit (Bird of Prey).
