In 1972, in Manzanillo, a young poet wrote: In Quito, an old woman / almost a hundred years old / after seeing Fidel / embrace her beard, her smile / her heart full of the people /—a whole tremor / an incredible ember in her ashes— / told her grandson / that she could die now / that she was happy now / because she had seen / the man*.
Many other poets wrote to Fidel before, and would do so after, from diverse perspectives: as equals, like someone speaking to a brother in arms; with the admiration of one who knows they are standing before a unique figure in history; With gratitude, with affection…
But in that particular elderly woman from Quito, the poetic discourse captured something special about the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution: his significance for the humble of the Earth, whether on the Island or abroad. It wasn't, as it might seem, a matter of fanaticism, but of reciprocity.
Wherever the hungry, the dispossessed, the illiterate, the landless lived… Fidel's name stood as a symbol of dignity. He had blown the impossible to smithereens, time and again; he had kept his promises; he had dedicated himself to making the Revolution after the Revolution.
And people saw it: he lost his voice, he fell ill and recovered, without ever ceasing to work, not even from his sickbed; he took off his cloak to cover the woman who had lost everything, and his own boots and those of his bodyguards to clothe the feet stripped bare by the hurricane.
People saw him: undaunted by the traps set by the ambassadors of death, without a vest, atop the tank, machete in hand; the first to face the challenge, the misfortune, and the victory… They saw him and recognized themselves in him.
Fidel was the people, he was the nation, he was the sum of each individual's shared hope; and from that bundle of faith rose the strength to truly change the world, not through election campaigns, not in books.
Rebellion could be, as he demonstrated, much more than the youthful folly that maturity condemns; it could be the true common sense that set the world right (or left).
That is why, because he belonged to everyone and was like everyone, and at the same time embodied that genius that led Raúl Roa to say: "Fidel hears the grass grow and sees what's happening around the corner," they called him the leader, the horse, the man.
One hundred years after his birth, everything written here remains relevant: the imperialists cannot defeat him, and the people acclaim him to uphold what is right and to judge what is questionable.
Fidel keeps alive the hope that his legacy returns to everyone, a shared and common heritage.
