Bolivariana

(Song XI from 'The American Dream')

(sung by Patricio Manns)

Who taught me what I sing?
Who taught me? I don't know.
Ask the land
and she will answer you.
What the land doesn't teach
no one can learn.
Oh, brother who asks:
if someone taught you to see.

Just as men rot
between bars and stones,
the beautiful face of the plain
is imprisoned by cities.
But the land suddenly
bursts what squeezes it.
Oh, sandwiched brother:
if you turned into an earthquake.

Likewise, the hill
is beheaded by the plow,
and instead of dying bleeding,
dream and voice through the throat,
from the wound opened by iron
the fruits that sing jump out.
Oh, brother: if you learned
to harvest what you plant.

Learn what you don't know
about the water that surrounds you:
by clouds it runs in the sky,
rolls in rivers on the land,
but the sea in its bosom
gathers it and gives it strength.
Oh, brother: open your chest
for the next time you drink.

Humiliated for centuries
we keep ignoring
and we spend our lives
separating with fear
while the enemy force
draws strength from our soil.
Oh, brother: if you understood
that alone we are worthless.

In the American land
there is only one wall that exists:
to the north there's a joyful town
and to the south twenty sad towns.
What did you see in this life,
my brother, that you didn't see it?
Learn to win as a man
what you never defended.

In the version from the album 'Songs of Chilean Popular Resistance' the text presents the following modifications:

* Oh, imprisoned brother
** we keep ignoring
*** Oh, brother: if you learned
**** In the American homeland