A titan of mulatto skin and bronze spirit came into the world there, next to the hills that shelter the Cuban city of Santiago. Thousands of kilometers away and 83 years later, Rosario is a city that seems to float on the soft undulations of the Argentine pampas. There, the "gaucho with a hard voice (the one who) gave Fidel his guerrilla blood and his broad hand" was born.
By giving so much of themselves to others, Maceo and Che erased the distance of time and space, and still gallop on roads that sometimes seem inaccessible. The peoples go with them, Latin America already knows it; the road is passable.
A poet, rummaging in Peralejo, Punta Brava, Duaba, Baraguá, could write of General Antonio the same as he praised the Argentinian doctor when he traveled through La Higuera, the Bolivian and Cuban sierras, or the unredeemed jungles of outraged Africa: "among legends you came to our days... -and you will know, if it is possible, forgive him- that you were already left for the seed of things and years".
From there are poems that seem like advice from quixotes: not to trust in imperialism, but "not even that much"; to fight against this carcinoma of the peoples is "the most sacred of duties"; "to rise or fall without help rather than to contract a debt of gratitude with such a powerful neighbor".
"Without demanding anything or exploiting anyone," Che Guevara felt -and he was- "as much a patriot of Latin America" as was the fifth son of Mariana willing to "make the freedom of Puerto Rico." "I would not like to surrender my sword leaving that portion of America a slave," he wrote.
Antonio Maceo and Che Guevara still ride, stretched out "their broad hand" when again our night seems darker.
"They are mistaken (...) imagining that you are a torso of absolute marble... / You were nothing but fire /...the light, the air, /...American freedom blowing where it wants, where they never / ever imagine it".
