La soldadera

(Carlos Benavides and Eduardo Larbanois are the co-authors of the Polka music)

La Chicharra was a black woman,
who lived in the barracks,
sharpening with the sergeant,
the colonel, the captain.
If war is a man's game,
as they say, then why
Juana, Padilla, Chicharra
were you with them, too?

A man's game, you’d think,
while walking you see
starving children,
old women against the wall
of shacks that won’t fall
over malvas or yaltén,*
because they still haven’t decided
which way to go down.

A man's game, you’d think,
Virgin Mary and Joseph,
with the cornfield destroyed
and even the spring run dry.

La Chicharra was a black woman,
who lived in the barracks;
sharpening with the sergeant,
the knife, the colonel.
Better to go with the army,
for her man or for her feet
than, like a smoky lantern,
in a corner to perish.

La Chicharra was a black woman,
didn’t live in the barracks,
sharpening with the war,
the knife of her being;
with a red insignia
or the emblem of the Cordobés,
she shared the soldier woman’s
victory or defeat.

She suffered and sweated on the roads,
on horseback, in a cart, on foot
and, at most, one report said:
yesterday a woman died.

La Chicharra or Padilla
come reminding you
that in their lives were settled
blades of the dawn.

* Alfredo Zitarrosa says “over malvas or yaltén.”