Etelvia Estrada
was born 1930 in Germany and grew up in Argentina.
Her oldest son was disappeared by the military junta in the late seventies.
She went to exile in Spain. Etelvina published several volumes of poetry.
Her poems were published in the Massachusetts Review and the International Poetry Review, among other journals.
When the hordes came
The hordes came
and sacked homes, towns, cities–
they seized control of the living and the
dead,
day, night, hopes, dreams,
the wind, rain, forests,
calendars, hands, books,
parents, children, grandparents.
The hordes came,
created darkness
and terror,
the hunt
goon squads
kidnapings
walls
interrogations
olive green
transfers
extermination camps
voltages
water torture
saws
gaffs
mutilations
dogs and rats
gnawing flesh and guts
and thus the dead were created,
the dead
dead
in the streets, on rooftops, in factories,
in schools, offices, on doorsteps,
in churches, in jungles, in the sea,
in barracks, in prisions.
The hordes came
and put through legal channels the death
of:
Pedro, Luis, Jose, Graciela, Alicia,
Diana,
Julian, Oscar, Miguel Angel, Thelma,
Raimundo, Haroldo, Rodolfo, Roberto,
offspring of all the children, friend of
friends,
extended families
and the missing among the missing.
The hordes came
with their flies neat and bottoned up.
Three polluted asses
and a single face truly sinister.
Three professional buzzards
sitting on the despot seat
in this time of funerals
and what good eggs they lay
hatching perpetual crimes.
Beneath the nation’s flag
under the boot everything goes,
even the sky goes underground.
There are the military virtues we have to
endured.
Translated by Zoe Anglesey