Tania-killed in unlit pathways

A Poem for Tania (Haydee Tamara Bunke Bider)

A poem yourself, you wrote a poem,

“Will my name one day be forgotten,

And nothing of me remains on the earth”.

One could feel a desire to live forever,

In the pages of history or the minds of those

The underlings for whom,

You nourished a dream,

To break their fetters,

 At the cost of your life,

Even before the hideous hands of power,

Slain you trapped in the waters of Rio Grande,

In the twilight of evening turning into dark

You lived in our hearts, right from the start,

Like a memory of a kiss that touched the beloved's lips,

 And like the fragrance of a rose,

That enlivened the hearts of those,

Whose soul was enriched with the act of your courage,

And don’t you forget,

Wherever you live,

Thy thoughts are alive,

To those for whom,

 You kissed the gallows.

With a bullet in your arm

And a perforated lung,

Drenched in blood, you rhymed a song,

A song of liberation, in a silvery voice

When you looked at the sky,

To say goodbye.

The gleam of your eyes, the smile of your face,                                                                                                

Glowed in the night,

 And turned the unlit pathways, illuminating brightly.

Where you were lost to become eternally alive.

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  Tania was killed by the CIA and the Bolivian army in her revolutionary struggle in 1967, a few days earlier than Che Guevara. She once said, “Will I die, and no one will remember me”.  Fidel Castro named “Tania the guerrilla” a hero of the Cuban Revolution