El Soldado en Mi -- The Soldier in Me

Recently, I have been waging a war within myself. The fierceness I know that lives in my heart was somehow subdued over the course of the last three years and it is time for it to be rekindled. As a man of God, I would hope that my strength can be lent to others, that my wild and fierce eyes would bring about hope to those who lack it and that my courage would permit me to speak plainly with an honest mouth and open heart.

I have been reading a lot of Pablo Neruda lately and found a poem that worked heavily upon me; the words I am about to pen are not mine, but they feel like mine. This is found in Residence on Earth and is from a poem called Sonata and Destructions. The Spanish version, which I will print first, is called Sonata Y Destrucciones.

amo lo tenaz que aun sobrevive en mis ojos,
oigo en mi corazon mis pasos de jinete,
muerdo el fuego dormido y la sal arruinada,
y de noche, de atmosphera oscura y luto porfugo,
aquel que vela a la orilla de los campamentos,
el viajero armado de esteriles resistencias,
detenido entre sombras que crecen y alas que tiemblan,
me siento ser, y mi brazo de pierdra me defiende.

or in English,

I love the tenacity that survives in my eyes,
I hear in my heart my horseman steps,
I bite the dormant fire and the ruined salt,
and at night, dark in atmosphere and fugitive mourning,
he who keeps vigil at the edge of camps,
the armed traveler of sterile resistances,
prisoner amid growing shadows and trembling wings,
I feel that I am he, and my arm of stone defends me.