The guitar of the young soldier
is freckled and discrete;
it is so timid that it only sings
after ten.
When they play Silence,
she awaits an hour
and slips away, on tiptoes,
and on the mountain, beneath a tree,
looses to the wind her love and her faith.
The guitar of the young soldier
is a recruit also.
The guitar of the young soldier
reveals secrets;
she loosens for a gaze
in arpeggios of love.
Each instant she asks him tunes and sones1,
songs that I've never heard,
and searching for them she always wakes up,
attempting at a better chord.
The guitar of the young soldier
didn't sleep today either.
The guitar of the young soldier
is the jealous lover
of what comes to follow it
in the spoken word and also in the outcry,
but always helping to live.
The guitar of the young soldier
is his best rifle.
1. cuban traditional music