Thirty years ago today Luis Alberto ‘El Negro’ Hormaeche, a trade unionist aged 40, died in the prison at Coronda, Santa Fe while illegally deprived of his liberty by the military-led dictatorship that controlled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. The distances in time, context and methods notwithstanding, it seems appropriate to post this poem today.
Requiem for the Croppies
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley-
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp -
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people, hardly marching – on the hike-
We found new tactics happening each day:
We’d cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until, on Vinegar Hill, the fatal conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August the barley grew up out of our grave.Seamus Heaney
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