Letter from Spain

Addressed to Alabama

Lincoln Battalion,
International Brigades,
November Something, 1937.
Dear Brother at home:

We captured a wounded Moor today.
He was just as dark as me.
I said, Boy, what you been doin’ here
Fightin’ against the free?

He answered something in a language
I couldn’t understand.
But somebody told me he was sayin’
They nabbed him in his land

And made him join the fascist army
And come across to Spain.
And he said he had a feelin’
He’d never get back home again.

He said he had a feelin’
This whole thing wasn’t right.
He said he didn’t know
The folks he had to fight.

And as he lay there dying
In a village we had taken,
I looked across to Africa
And seed foundations shakin’.

Cause if a free Spain wins this war,
The colonies, too, are free —
Then something wonderful’ll happen
To them Moors as dark as me.

I said, I guess that’s why old England
And I reckon Italy, too,
Is afraid to let a workers’ Spain
Be too good to me and you —

Cause they got slaves in Africa —
And they don’t want ’em to be free.
Listen, Moorish prisoner, hell!
Here, shake hands with me!

I knelt down there beside him,
And I took his hand —
But the wounded Moor was dyin’
And he didn’t understand.

      Salud,
            Johnny