Breakfast woodsmoke on the breeze --
   on the cliff the u.s. Embassy
   frowns out over managua like dracula's tower.
   the kid who guards fonseca's tomb
   cradles a beat-up submachine gun --
   at age fifteen he's a veteran of four years of war
   proud to pay his dues
   he knows who turns the screws
   baby face and old man's eyes
  
   Blue lagoon and flowering trees --
   bullet-packed masaya streets
   full of the ghosts of the heroes of monimbo
   women of the town laundry
   work and gossip and laugh at me --
   they don't believe i'll ever send them the pictures i took.
   for every scar on a wall
   there's a hole in someone's heart
   where a loved one's memory lives
  
   in the flash of this moment
   you're the best of what we are --
   don't let them stop you now
   nicaragua
  
   sandino in his tom mix hat
   gazes from billboards and coins
   "sandino vive en la lucha por la paz"
   sandino of the shining dream
   who stood up to the u.s. marines --
   now washington panics at u2 shots of "cuban-style" latrines
  
   in the flash of this moment
   you're the best of what we are --
   don't let them stop you now
   nicaragua