Classic Poem

Awaking muscle of a race asleep
Loud release of a force compressed
He announces for us with the verb of his life
epics to be of a new multitude
From Africa that paints a great heart on the globe,
he brought the lion's warrior heart
pounding his chest below its black fleece,
and in every sonorous beat it was
the Cuban bell of the revolution.

You with eyes over the handkerchief of this elegy,
recall, Cubans, recall,
that once while docility slept in the cities,
out of the forest a light came forth
and you could hear in the night the slice of a machete.