HUMBERTO AK'ABAL ~

 

If Today Were Tomorrow

THE RIVER

Kneeling

on a yagual,

bent over a stone,

my mother washes

and washes

and washes.

My little sister

sleeps in a basket

covered in willow leaves.

Me? I am sitting

on piled straw,

watching how the water leaves

and how the river stays.

ON THE FLOOR

The moon

finds holes

in abode houses

then slips in

to sit on the floor.

AT THE SPRING

In still water,

a rose-winged dragonfly

sailing on a dry leaf.

A PLANK

I wish I were

simple as a tree.

Or even better,

a plank.

WHAT IS, IS

Let's cut the bullshit:

Ghosts?

They exist!

A town without ghosts

is not a real town.

But

the ghosts

have got to be real.

NIGHT

Dark night

darker than dark

and smelling of rain.

On nights like this

no one knows

where earth ends

and the sky begins.

TIRED

With the full weight

of a chopped-up tree,

the load of firewood

drips sap

down my back.

My head strap turns to fire.

I stop for a bit

and my shadow stretches out long

to lie on the ground,

maybe more tired than I am.

PRAYER

In church

the only prayer you hear

comes from the trees

they turned into pews.

STONES

It's not that stones are mute:

they just keep quiet.

THE MOON ON THE WATER

She wasn't beautiful

but she hit me

like the moon on the water.

FLIGHT

I am a bird:

flight lives

inside me.

BIRTH

Poets are born old:

as the years pass

we make ourselves into children.

WALKING BACKWARDS

Every now and then,

I turn and start walking backwards:

it's my way of remembering.

If I only ever walked forward,

then I could tell you

what forgetting is.

IN THE DARK

I learned to sing through pain

like a bird in the dark.

_______________________

Humberto Ak'abal

If Today Were Tomorrow

Milkweed, 2024

RE-READING OTTO RENE CASTILLO ~

 

Liberty, You Say

Liberty,

you tell me,

is the most beautiful

thing that exists

on our young

planet.

You can't

live without it;

it's like the oxygen

of the soul.

If you have it,

you can never

lose it,

for you would die

from such immense pain.

It is not conquered.

It is carried humbly,

like an afternoon

in the depths of the heart.

But I who live

and suffer my country

like no one else,

I do not agree

with you.

The people here

have never been free.

For many it no longer matters

if the chain is thick

and gets thicker daily.

It doesn't move them to know

that their country,

like a sad, sweet

swallow

slowly agonizes;

surrounded by the cold

and miserable indifference

of her children.

You also don't

know

the brute dictatorship

we suffer in my country.

Nor have you ever

lost your freedom.

And your laughter

is the happiest

of all the laughter

I know.

Your country

is now a series

of simple mornings

that sing at sunrise

for you and yours.

But one day

we

will

also be free.

Then

we will have

to defend

our liberty

every day,

making deep sacrifices

of tenderness and kindness.

Liberty is

within us,

like the night

is in the dawn,

and by our

resounding will

the digits

of her face

are already marked.

You must also

get used to freedom

in order to love it,

and to guard it

every second,

because it's been

hunted

for a long time

so that its smooth, clear

heart of multitudes

could be clubbed to death.

But above all,

when you don't have it,

when you don't know

the particular details

of her face,

then you should fight

to find her,

to liberate her

from the darkest shadow.

This way, liberty

is the triumph

of those who

have never been truly free.

And once achieved,

they should repeat

the action

every day of their life.

translated by Alejandro Murguia

__________________________

Otto Rene Castillo

Tomorrow Triumphant

Night Heron Books, 1984

Scroll up again and look at that beautiful poet's face.

At age 31, in the early spring 1967, in the remote highlands

of Guatemala, Otto Rene Castillo was burned at the stake after

days of being tortured and mutilated by the Guatemalan Army.

It is said, "Castillo met with dignity the prescribed fate of

captured guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) 

of Guatemala. After years of agitation and exile, he had entered

into armed struggle convinced that it was the only way to liberate

his country from a tragic history of oppression and genocide."

[ BA ]