Rise up in birth with me, my brother.
Give me your hand out of the deep
zone of your wide-spread sorrow.
You will not return from the bedrock depths.
You will not return from subterranean time.
It will not return, your hardened voice.
They will not return, your pierced eyes.

Look at me from the depths of the earth, you,
the farm worker, the weaver, the quiet shepherd,
the tamer of guardian guanacos,
the mason on his defied scaffolding,
the water carrier bearing Andean tears,
the jeweler with crushed fingers,
the farmer trembling among his seeds,
you, the potter poured in your clay,
all ye, bring to the cup
of this new life
your ancient buried sorrows.
Show me your blood
and your furrow,
tell me: here I was punished
because the jewel did not shine or the earth
failed to yield enough stone
or enough corn:
point to the rock on which you fell
and the wood on which they crucified you;
strike the old flints,
turn on the old lamps, crack the whips embedded
throughout the centuries in your wounds
and the axes with blood-encrusted sparkle.
I am coming to speak for and through your dead mouths.
Throughout the earth, join together
all the scattered silent lips,
and out of the depths speak to me during this long night
as if I were anchored to you.
Tell me everything, chain by chain,
link by link, and step by step.
Sharpen the knives
you'd locked away,
put them on my breast and into my hands,
like a river of yellow lightening,
like a river of buried tigers,
and let me cry, hours, days, years,
blind ages, stellar centuries.

Give me silence, water, hope.
Give me the struggle, the iron, the volcanoes.
Attach your bodies to me like magnets.
Come to my veins and my mouth.
Speak through my words and my blood.