Ode to Valparaiso

What nonsense
You are
What a crazy
Insane Port.

Your mounded head
Disheveled
You never finish combing your hair
Life has always surprised you

Death woke you
In your undershirt and long underwear
Fringed with color
Naked

With a name tattooed on the stomach
And with a cap
The earthquake grabbed you
You ran
Mad

Broke your fingernails
It moved
The waters and the stones
Sidewalks
And seas

The night,
You would sleep
In the ground
Tired
From your sailing

And the furious earth
Lifted its waves
More stormy
Than a tempest

The dust
Covered you
The eyes
The flames
Burned your shoes

The solid
Houses of bankers
Trembled
Like wounded whales

While above
The houses of the poor
Leapt
Into nothingness

Like captive birds
Testing their wings
Collapse

Quickly
Valparaiso,
Sailor,
You forget
the  tears 

And you return
to hanging your dwellings
to paint doors
green
Windows
Yellow,

Everything
You transform into a boat
Your are
The patched bow
Of a small
Courageous
Ship

The crowns nest
With foam
Your rope lines that sing
And the light of the ocean
That shakes the masts
And flags
In your indestructible swaying

Dark star
You are
From far away
In the height of the coast
Shining

And soon
You surrender
Your hidden fire
The rocking
Of your deaf alleys

The naturalness
Of your movement
The clarity
Of your seamanship
Here ends this ode

Valparaiso
So small
Like a cloth
Helpless
Hanging

Ragged in a Window
Swaying
In the Wind
of the ocean
Impregnated
With all the pain
Of your ground

Receiving
The dew
Of the sea, the kiss
Of the wild angry sea
That with all of its power
Beat the rocks

Because on your southern chest
Is tattooed
The struggle
The hope
The solidarity

And the joy
As anchors
Resisting
The waves of the earth.