By Pablo Neruda

The whole human earth was bleeding.

Time, buildings, routes, rain,

ease the constellation of the crime,

the fact is, this small planet

has been covered a thousand times by blood,

war or vengeance, ambush or battle,

people fell, they were devoured,

and later oblivion wiped clean

each square meter: sometimes

a vague, dishonest monument,

other times a clause in bronze,

and still later, conversations, births,

townships, and then oblivion.

What arts we have for extermination

and what science to obliterate memory!

What was bloody is covered with flowers.

Once more, young men, ready yourselves

for another chance to kill, to die again,

and to scatter flowers over the blood.