The disenchantment of a country that does not stop repeating itself(4)

The first four verses already show the disenchantment of the writer:

I'm thinking of exiling myself,
in going away from here
to a strange land where I enjoy
the freedoms of life

The interesting thing that this thinking makes "an insomniac prisoner" and is the beginning of a ballad, which talks about "... going away from here / to a strange land" when the author is actually imprisoned in a prison. "Strange land" does not seem interested in a particular destination, but a place far away from what he knows; but that meets a requirement, which for now has been denied: "... where enjoy / the freedoms of living."

Then, you see the reason for his condemnation: "For worshiping my liberties / slave in chains I fell" which is an indication of the political situation of his time, the dictatorship; where every gesture of freedom is paid dearly.

The following verses describe, with a certain humor, the precarious conditions of the political prisoner:

here I am loaded with irons,
dirty, famished,
enchiquerado like a pig,
hirsute like a pig-spin.

It is not only a dramatic description, it is a denunciation of the subhuman conditions suffered by political prisoners, enemies of dictatorships. The description continues, mentioning his isolation and confinement in a cell without access to light and the danger he suffers, when he tries, albeit a little and briefly "to look shining in the patio / the clear sun of my country."

The second verse, follows the tone of the first, but moves away from the narrative of the hardships of the prison, but speaks of illusions, how he imagines his life in exile. The comfort of being somewhere else where freedom is respected and obviously, where the needs are met and pleasures are met and satisfied, but you can not avoid thinking about your land, your past, the people you met and did not live to tell, forgotten loves , the sun of your country.
The third verse continues to imagine a life outside the country; bringing to mention the frequent common places of the time that abroad was had on a country like Venezuela. It is evident that the poet imagines himself in Europe or another developed country. It is compared to a "marmoset" mentions that the cars are pulled by tigers and ends the verse with verses that look like a lament "What fantasies develops / the clear sun of my country!" And are the expression of disenchantment: imagine your life , your possible destination, how you see the country from outside ... from a prison.

The fourth stanza, is a lament before the idea that when establishing itself in the exile, it will break the ties with its earth; but his offspring will have neither the features nor the culture of his father's country of origin. On the other hand, he does not regret such a rupture with his origins, because the longings for freedom can be more than nationalistic feelings: "free to think and feel, / then they will be born in a strange land / and not in the land where I was born" and these assimilated they will have no ties, with the father's country, for which at the end of the verse he laments: "and I will seek, without getting, / in the depths of their eyes / the clear sun of my country."

The fifth stanza arrives at the climax of the poem, when already knowing that one day it will die, in exile, without returning to its homeland; Imagine your offspring thinking and talking about your destiny, of being an exile, of having had an unhappy life, of having lost your homeland, although your consolation, the grandchildren will. It is striking that the poet places the date of this part in the year 2000; although well separated for Martínez, it is part of the contemporary present and what the poet did not see, is that in a time so far from him like this, things have changed little.

The sixth verse, the poet shows his bitter hope, for what should be that year 2000, which must be remembered, in the context of that time, the turn of the millennium was imagined either as the end of the world, or as a paradigmatic jump that would transform the arts, sciences, societies: the time after the year 2000 is imagined as the so-called society of the future where spaceships, temporary jumps, advanced technology wing; the customs and cultures free from prejudice and a very high standard of living. But the poet can not know if that will happen, so his illusion transforms into uncertainty:

Oh, who knows if by then,
already close to the year 2000,
is enlightening freedoms
The clear sun of my country!

And from this, already in the current moment, you get to disenchantment. The ballad, whose refrain is repeated, accentuating the hardness of imagining something that can never happen.