They Come Through the Islands (1493)

The butchers razed the islands.

Guanahaní was first in this story of martyrdom.

The children of clay saw their smile shattered, beaten their fragile stature of deer, and even in death they did not understand.

They were bound and tortured, burned and branded, bitten and buried.

And when time finished its waltzing twirl, dancing in the palms, the green salon was empty.

Nothing remained but bones rigidly arranged in the form of a cross, to the greater glory of God and mankind.

From the Greater Clays and the Branches of Sotavento to the coralline chains,

Narváez's knife kept cutting away.

Here the cross, there the rosary, here the Virgin of the Cudgel.

The jewel of Columbus, phosphoric Cuba, received the flag and knees on its wet sand.