The Yoke Bar
Those lands in the corner
I sowed with a gray ox.
The yoke broke on me
and the team keeps going.
When I reached halfway
the plow was buried,
it reached even the headstall,
the plowshare got loose,
the yoke was swaying,
the yoke was scraping,
the sower was talking to me,
I told the sower:
"Don't talk to me while I'm plowing."
The yoke broke on me
and the team keeps going.
When I finished picking
came the rich man and split it.
He took all my corn,
he didn't leave me any to eat.
He presents me the bill here:
"Here you owe 20 pesos
for the rent of some oxen,
5 pesos for magueys,
a nega three quarters
of the beans we lent you,
a nega three quarters
of the corn we limited you.
5 pesos for some sacks,
7 pesos for cigarettes,
6 pesos I don't know what for,
but everything is on the bill,
plus the 20 reales
you took from the store.
If you don't pay the Hacienda
what's due from your corn,
but you can count on my land
to keep sowing it.
Now go work
so you can keep fertilizing."
I just stayed thinking,
shaking my blanket,
making my leaf cigarette:
"What a shameless boss
he took all my corn
for his damn barn."
The yoke broke on me
and the team keeps going.
When I arrived at my little house
my beloved one said to me:
"Where's the corn that was yours?"
I answered very sadly:
"The boss took it
for what I owed at the Hacienda,
but the boss told me
to count on the land
to keep sowing it.
Now I'm going to work
to keep fertilizing
20 pesos 10 cents
plus what I come up with."
My beloved one said to me:
"Don't work with that man,
he's just robbing us,
go to the meeting hall,
let my godfather take you,
don't listen to the priest,
him and his excommunications,
don't you see your family
that doesn't even have pants,
I don't even have a skirt
and you don't have pants."
I just stayed thinking
if I should leave my boss
my beloved one said to me:
"Let the boss go to hell,
as if we were starving,
if you're going to keep believing
what they say in the media,
pure manipulation
and government lies.
The boss is in the countryside,
the landowners and associates,
white guards and thugs,
just exploiting people,
draining our land.
And there in the cities
the corrupt police,
the mobsters and bankers,
sucking the blood
of the people, of the workers.
That's why Zapata
is riding again:
the civil revolution,
long live self-government."
The yoke broke on me
and the team keeps going.
