#heroism - Hello Poetry

[Intro] [Author Reading - Spoken Word. Classical low background music, spanish guitars, cello, Galicia, Spain flavor] [Verse 1] [baritone male spoken word] Although I stand on the shoulders of giants, I fail to see much further than the bridge of my nose. The fault is mine. The shame is mine. For I am unworthy of you, my beloved dead. [Verse 2] Unsung Heroes, number one: Emilio, maternal grandfather. Your crime was literacy and the possession of a social conscience that made you yearn to see your beloved Spain remain free and prevented you from suffering fascists lightly. You did not bear arms, for you abhorred all violence. You did not incite rebellion, though you rebelled against the foreign and domestic enemies of freedom. [Verse 3] As best I can tell, you were an idealist who in a time of darkness clung passionately to the belief in the perfectibility of the human spirit. You would not abide the lies the regional papers carried and translated news from American and British newspapers about the gathering storm, sharing the truth freely with all who would listen. You gave speeches and wrote speeches delivered by others in support of a doomed Republic, collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption. [Verse 4] You were warned by friends of your imminent arrest and offered passage back to the United States or to Buenos Aires, where so many of your friends had already found refuge. But they would not get your wife and nine children out, and you refused to leave them to their fate. They came for you, as always, in the middle of the night, these cowards with stern faces hiding behind machine guns. [Verse 5] [string pad swells] They took you prisoner, not for the first time, to the Castillo de San Antón, a fortress by a most beautiful, crinkled bay, where they tore out your nails one by one, and those, their gentlest caresses, while they asked you for names. You endured God knows what there for months and were sentenced to be shot as a traitor at La Plaza de María Pita. But the Republic had friends, even among the officers of the fascist forces, and one of them opened your cell door on the eve of your execution. [Verse 6] You had contracted tuberculosis by then. Yet, according to Grandmother, you managed to swim miles across the bay in a moonlit night to safety in the home of another patriot who risked his life and the lives of his family to hide you in his root cellar and made a trip of many miles on foot to find your wife. [Verse 7] He found your home and told your wife of your unexpected reprieve and asked her to send some clothing and some shoes to replace your ***** tattered rags. Your eldest daughter, María, insisted on accompanying the stranger back on foot, taking clothing and what provisions she could quickly gather and carry to you. [Verse 8] From time to time, you accepted the hospitality of an overnight stay in the attic or hayloft of a Republican sympathizer, as these were not hard to find in the fiercely independent Galicia under the yoke of one of its own. But mostly, you lived in the woods with active guerrillas for years. You lived with all the comforts of a hunted animal, with others who would not yield. Your only crime consisted of being on the wrong side of a lost cause. I hope it brought you some comfort to know you were on the right side of history. It brought none to your wife and to your youngest children. [Verse 9] As you paid the long penance for your conscience, once a month or so, after some time passed, you visited your wife and children. You were introduced to the little ones as an uncle from afar. They did not know the bearded wild man who paid these visits in the middle of the night and left wearing Dad's old, clean clothes. The older ones—María, Josefa, Juan, Antoñita—all in their teens, told the little ones that their uncle brought news of their dad. The younger children, still wearing the frayed cloaks of their innocence, accepted this, not questioning why he stayed in Mom's room all night and was gone before they awoke the next morning. [Verse 10] Your grief at playing the part of a stranger in your own home, of not embracing your children on whom you doted, one and all, to their protection and yours, as there were no shortage of fascists who tried to ply them with pastries and candy, seeking to use their innocence as a weapon against you. Your parents were relatively wealthy business owners who farmed the sea, but disowned you, perhaps for your politics, perhaps for choosing to emigrate and refusing to join the family business, or perhaps for marrying for love in New York City, a hardworking girl beneath your social station in their eyes. [Verse 11] You lived just long enough to see Spain delivered from war, though not the weight of her chains. You were spared the war's aftermath; your wife and children were not. No books record your name. Most of those who knew you are dead. Yet flowers have long perpetually appeared on the simple above-ground burial site in Sada that holds your ashes and those of your eldest son, Juan, and second eldest daughter, Toñita, who died much younger than even you. Your wife has joined you there, in a place where honor, goodness, decency, principle, in a pure, broken heart, now rest in peace.

0

May 15

May 15, 2026 at 11:19 PM UTC

VictorDLopez

Unsung Heroes I - Emilio (Maternal Grandfather) - Poem, Lyrics & free link to spoken word version

[Intro] [Author Reading - Spoken Word. Classical low background music, spanish guitars, cello, Galicia, Spain flavor] [Verse 1] [baritone male spoken word] Although I stand on the shoulders of giants, I fail to see much further than the bridge of my nose. The fault is mine. The shame is mine. For I am unworthy of you, my beloved dead. [Verse 2] Unsung Heroes, number one: Emilio, maternal grandfather. Your crime was literacy and the possession of a social conscience that made you yearn to see your beloved Spain remain free and prevented you from suffering fascists lightly. You did not bear arms, for you abhorred all violence. You did not incite rebellion, though you rebelled against the foreign and domestic enemies of freedom. [Verse 3] As best I can tell, you were an idealist who in a time of darkness clung passionately to the belief in the perfectibility of the human spirit. You would not abide the lies the regional papers carried and translated news from American and British newspapers about the gathering storm, sharing the truth freely with all who would listen. You gave speeches and wrote speeches delivered by others in support of a doomed Republic, collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption. [Verse 4] You were warned by friends of your imminent arrest and offered passage back to the United States or to Buenos Aires, where so many of your friends had already found refuge. But they would not get your wife and nine children out, and you refused to leave them to their fate. They came for you, as always, in the middle of the night, these cowards with stern faces hiding behind machine guns. [Verse 5] [string pad swells] They took you prisoner, not for the first time, to the Castillo de San Antón, a fortress by a most beautiful, crinkled bay, where they tore out your nails one by one, and those, their gentlest caresses, while they asked you for names. You endured God knows what there for months and were sentenced to be shot as a traitor at La Plaza de María Pita. But the Republic had friends, even among the officers of the fascist forces, and one of them opened your cell door on the eve of your execution. [Verse 6] You had contracted tuberculosis by then. Yet, according to Grandmother, you managed to swim miles across the bay in a moonlit night to safety in the home of another patriot who risked his life and the lives of his family to hide you in his root cellar and made a trip of many miles on foot to find your wife. [Verse 7] He found your home and told your wife of your unexpected reprieve and asked her to send some clothing and some shoes to replace your ***** tattered rags. Your eldest daughter, María, insisted on accompanying the stranger back on foot, taking clothing and what provisions she could quickly gather and carry to you. [Verse 8] From time to time, you accepted the hospitality of an overnight stay in the attic or hayloft of a Republican sympathizer, as these were not hard to find in the fiercely independent Galicia under the yoke of one of its own. But mostly, you lived in the woods with active guerrillas for years. You lived with all the comforts of a hunted animal, with others who would not yield. Your only crime consisted of being on the wrong side of a lost cause. I hope it brought you some comfort to know you were on the right side of history. It brought none to your wife and to your youngest children. [Verse 9] As you paid the long penance for your conscience, once a month or so, after some time passed, you visited your wife and children. You were introduced to the little ones as an uncle from afar. They did not know the bearded wild man who paid these visits in the middle of the night and left wearing Dad's old, clean clothes. The older ones—María, Josefa, Juan, Antoñita—all in their teens, told the little ones that their uncle brought news of their dad. The younger children, still wearing the frayed cloaks of their innocence, accepted this, not questioning why he stayed in Mom's room all night and was gone before they awoke the next morning. [Verse 10] Your grief at playing the part of a stranger in your own home, of not embracing your children on whom you doted, one and all, to their protection and yours, as there were no shortage of fascists who tried to ply them with pastries and candy, seeking to use their innocence as a weapon against you. Your parents were relatively wealthy business owners who farmed the sea, but disowned you, perhaps for your politics, perhaps for choosing to emigrate and refusing to join the family business, or perhaps for marrying for love in New York City, a hardworking girl beneath your social station in their eyes. [Verse 11] You lived just long enough to see Spain delivered from war, though not the weight of her chains. You were spared the war's aftermath; your wife and children were not. No books record your name. Most of those who knew you are dead. Yet flowers have long perpetually appeared on the simple above-ground burial site in Sada that holds your ashes and those of your eldest son, Juan, and second eldest daughter, Toñita, who died much younger than even you. Your wife has joined you there, in a place where honor, goodness, decency, principle, in a pure, broken heart, now rest in peace.