El Niño Yuntero

Yoke flesh, born more humiliated than beautiful, with the neck pursued by the yoke for the neck. He is born, like a tool destined for blows, from dissatisfied land and an unsatisfied plow. Among pure and living cow manure, he brings to life a soul the color of old olive, already calloused. He begins to live, and begins to die from end to end, lifting the bark of his mother with the yoke. He begins to feel, and feels life like a war, and wearily strikes the earth's bones. He doesn't know how to count his years, but already knows that sweat is a heavy crown of salt for the laborer. He works and while working, seriously and manly, he is anointed by rains and adorned with cemetery flesh. Strong from blows, and polished by the sun, with an ambition for death, he tears apart a tough loaf. Each new day he is more root, less creature, listening under his feet to the voice of the grave. And like a root, he sinks slowly into the earth, so that the earth may flood his forehead with peace and bread. This hungry child pains me like a grand thorn, and his ashen life stirs my soul of oak. I see him plowing the stubble, and devouring a crust, and declaring with his eyes why he is yoke flesh. His plow pierces my chest, and his life my throat, and I suffer seeing the fallow land so vast beneath his foot. Who will save this child smaller than a grain of oats? Where will come the executioner hammer of this chain? Let it come from the hearts of the laboring men, who before being men are and have been young ox drivers.