The Ardent Hymn that Unites Peoples.

Latin America is very fond of the word "hope." We like to be called the "continent of hope." Candidates for deputy, senator, president, call themselves "candidates of hope." This hope is really something like a promise of heaven, an IOU whose payment is always being put off. It is put off until the next legislative campaign, until next year, until the next century.

We came by night to the Fortunate Isles, And lay like fish Under the net of our kisses.

Shyness is a condition foreign to the heart - a category, a dimension which leads to loneliness.

Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.

From scarlet to powdered gold, to blazing yellow, to the rare ashen emerald, to the orange and black velvet of your shimmering corselet, out to the tip that like an amber thorn begins you, small, superlative being, you are a miracle, and you blaze

My duty moves along with my song: I am I am not: that is my destiny. I exist not if I do not attend to the pain of those who suffer: they are my pains. For I cannot be without existing for all, for all who are silent and oppressed, I come from the people and I sing for them: my poetry is song and punnishment.