Che Guevara’s green notebook

DEAR FRIENDS

I don't write much. I love to read poems written by great poets rather than writing anything that does not satisfy myself  or does not speak my feelings.For now I would like to share some stuffs with you-

Che Guevara’s green notebook, which was found among his belongings when he was shot by the CIA in 1967. The notebook has since been kept locked away by the Bolivian military.

The notebook contains 69 poems by Pablo Neruda (Chile), Nicolás Guillén (Cuba), César Vallejo (Peru) and León Felipe (Spain). The poems are written out in Guevara’s own hand.

The following is a poem by César Vallejo 

The Black Heralds

There are blows in life, so powerful . . . I don’t know!
Blows as from the hatred of God; as if, facing them,
the undertow of everything suffered
welled up in the soul . . . I don’t know!

They are few; but they are . . . They open dark trenches
in the fiercest face and in the strongest back.
Perhaps they are the colts of barbaric Attilas;
or the black heralds sent to us by Death.

They are the deep falls of the Christs of the soul,
of some adored faith blasphemed by Destiny.
Those bloodstained blows are the crackling of
bread burning up at the oven door.

And man . . . Poor . . . poor! He turns his eyes, as
when a slap on the shoulder summons us;
turns his crazed eyes, and everything lived
wells up, like a pool of guilt, in his look.

There are blows in life, so powerful . . . I don’t know!