El Día del Indio Americano: Norval Morrisseau


El Día del Indio Americano: un homenaje al Pueblo Maya

Dos poemas por Juan Felipe Herrera / Two poems by Juan Felipe Herrera

de un homenaje al Pueblo Maya  /  from an homage to the Mayan People

 

_____

 

Morning opens like the grasses

of my pueblo, leaves of corn and orange squash.

The dreams of the wounded

rise to caress her, they weave yellow crosses,

woolen suns, rivers of lances.

It rains on the streets,

maids scurry to the market.

Their laughter and jokes, their heavy dresses.

The twittering kiosk lets go of its copper

and city life begins.  Once more

another river happens.  Flows down my braids

all the way to my heart.

My mother Pascuala’s hands

weave onto mine.  At times the wounds

close and what is left is only

the act of being reborn.

 

_____

 

La mañana se abre como las pastos

de mi pueblo, hojas de maíz y anaranjada calabaza.

Los sueños de los heridos

suben a acariciarla, tejen cruces amarillas

soles de lana, ríos de lanzas.

Llueve en las calles,

las criadas se apreseran al mercado.

Sus risas y sus chistes, sus enaguas pesadas.

El quiosco cantarín suelta su cobre

y empieza la vida en la ciudad.  Una vez más,

otro río nace.  Desciende por mis trenzas

hasta mi corazón.

Las manos de mi madre Pascuala

se tejen en las mías.  A veces las heridas

se cierran y queda solamente

el acto de renacer.

 

_____

 

The pueblo’s triumph will rise from a torn branch,

in a landscape of a wounded mare and a ruined cornfield.

It will be in your sisters, their instruments transformed

across the world.  In the international pollen

the mountain’s sudden conversion

into birds and serpents and women and hard thunder.

 

.

* pueblo means village – also people

 

_____

 

El triunfo del pueblo emanará de una rama rota,

en un paisaje de yegua herida y un maizal trastornado.

Estará en tus hermanas, sus instrumentos renovados

a través del mundo, en el polen internacional

las montañas que de repente se convierten

en aves y serpientes y mujeres y relámpagos duros.

 

_____

 

Juan Felipe Herrera was born in 1948 in California

to parents who were migrant farm-workers.

A Chicano poet, he has been writing for 40 years,

freely combining Spanish and English.

He has been described as “a factory of hybridity”

and “an eclectic virtuoso”.

_

In these two poems Herrera speaks in the voices

of a Mayan mother, Pascuala (“The pueblo’s triumph…”) and her

daughter Makal (“Morning opens…”)

Herrera’s poem-story, Thunderweavers/Tejedoras de rayos (2000),

is an homage to the Mayan people of Acteal, Chiapas, México,

where paramilitaries massacred townsfolk in 1997.



El Día del Indio Americano: unos poemas en guaraní y una reflexión sobre el lenguaje paraguayo

_____

Feliciano Acosta Alcaraz

(nace 1943, Paraguay)

OKÁI YVYTU

 

 

Pytä yvytu rembe’y,

okái yvytu

ha hendy.

 

Ikü hakuvópe

oheréi kapi’i

ha omosununu.

 

Ka’aguy rovykä

omocha’ï

ha omyendy avei.

 

Hendypa yvytu,

kapi’i ha

ka’aguy.

 

Okái che retä

Ha ipyahë ryapu

Tatatïre ojupi.

 

Okái,

okaihágui

okaive

che retä.

 

_

 

Arde el Viento

 

 

Escarlata se ha vuelto,

la orilla del viento

se quema el viento y arde.

 

Con su tórrida lengua

lame la hierba

y la inflama.

 

Arruga

los árboles del bosque

y los enciende a su paso.

 

Arden el viento,

las hierbas y

el monte.

 

Mi tierra se incendia

y su gemido

se levanta en humo.

 

Se calcina,

más

y más

mi tierra.

 

_

 

KO’ËJU

 

 

Ko’ëju,

ko’ëju.

 

Mamóiko

reime.

 

Ipohýi,

ipohyive

ko pytü.

 

Hetáma

osyry

jukyry.

 

Ñembyahýi

opáy

ha okevy

ogami

kapi’i

pepo

guýpe.

 

Yvytu.

Ejúna pya’e

yvytu,

rehasávo

ehetünte

jepe

oipoväva

angata

ko’ëju

ra’ärövo

oikovéva

rova.

 

_

 

Albor

 

 

Albor,

albor.

 

¿Dónde

estás?

 

Es pesada

muy pesada

la noche.

 

Ya ha corrido

tanto

el sudor.

 

El hambre

despierta

y dormita

bajo

las alas

humildes

del techo.

 

Viento.

Acude con prisa

viento,

y besa

a tu paso

el rostro

del que teje

la angustia,

del que vive

esperando

el albor.

 

_

 

JEHEKA

 

 

Aguyguy, aheka

pe yvy.

 

Mamópoku oime.

Ysyry ruguaitépe

apovyvy

jahechápa ajuhu.

 

Ysoindy rata pirirípe

añemi

aheka

ha mamópa ajuhu.

 

Añapymi ynambu

perere ryapu ryrýipe

aheka.

 

Che ári opa kuarahy,

ha aheka ahekavérö aheka

ha mamópa ajuhu.

 

Itakuruvi che pire ombo’i.

Che py huguy syry tyky.

 

Mamópoku oime

pe yvy,

yvy maräne’ÿ.

 

Tatatïme poku

oime

reñemi.

 

_

 

Búsqueda

 

 

Deambulo buscando

esa tierra.

 

¿Dónde estará?

El fondo del río

hurgo

haber si lo encuentro.

 

En el chisporroteo de la luz de la luciérnaga

me agazapo también,

buscando

y jamás la encontré.

 

En el temblor

del aleteo de la perdiz me sumergí

buscándola.

 

El sol cae implacable sobre mí,

y la busco

y la sigo buscando

y jamás la encontré.

 

Los cantos rodados trizan mi piel

Mis pies sangran a borbotones.

 

Dónde estará

esa tierra,

la tierra sin mal.

 

¿Será que la niebla,

la cubre.

 

_

 

ÑE’Ẽ RYRÝI

 

 

Che ahy’ópe

oryrýi

che ñe’ẽ.

 

Che ñe’ẽ

osẽséva

ombokua

yvytu.

 

Che ruguy

opupu,

osapukái

mboraihúpe

guarã

oipota

piro’y.

 

Che ahy’ópe

oryrýi

che ñe’ẽ.

 

Che ñe’ẽ

osẽséva

ombokua

yvytu.

 

Ha katu

iporãve

che ahy’ópe omano.

 

_

 

Temblorosa Palabra

 

 

En mi garganta

tiembla

mi palabra.

Mi palabra

que quiere salir

a perforar

el viento.

 

Mi sangre

bulle,

grita

porque

quiere

alivio

para el pobre.

 

En mi garganta

tiembla

mi palabra.

 

Mi palabra,

que quiere salir

a perforar

el viento.

 

Y bien puede ser

que en mi misma garganta

se muera.

 

 

 

_____

Nota de redactor:

La nación de Paraguay es única.

La gente es en su mayoría mestiza y bilingüe;  habla dos lenguajes oficiales:

el español y el idioma indígeno “guaraní”.   Aunque habla guaraní,

la mayoría no se ve como indígena.  Existen en Paraguay un mestizaje cultural

sin igual;  la hispanización de los paraguayos es real pero hablan y utilizan – el guaraní

el noventa por ciento de la población – un caso singular en el mundo actual.

Hay ocho millones de hablantes de guaraní, cifra que incluye a muchos argentinos y

brasileños de quien el guaraní es su lengua maternal.

Un idioma aislado ha prosperado mientras otros han desaparecido.

Estos hechos suscitan numerosas preguntas y nos dan mucho en que pensar en este día,

el 19 de abril – el Día del Indio Americano.

 

_____

Traducción de poemas del guaraní al español:

El poeta – y Ruben Bareiro Saguier y Carlos Villagra Marsal


Chinua Achebe: “Pine Tree in Spring” and “Their Idiot Song”

Norway Spruce_and Maple  tree on the right_Toronto_Canada.

Chinua Achebe

Pine Tree in Spring

(for Léon Damas *)

.

Pine tree

flag bearer

of green memory

across the breach of a desolate hour

*

Loyal tree

that stood guard

alone in austere emeraldry

over Nature’s recumbent standard

*

Pine tree

lost now in the shade

of traitors decked out flamboyantly

marching back unabashed to the colours they betrayed

*

Fine tree

erect and trustworthy

What school can teach me

your silent, stubborn fidelity?

 

.

*Léon Damas, 1912-1978, French poet, born in French Guiana (“Guyane”);  one of the founders,

along with Léopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire, of the “Négritude” literary and ideological movement

 

.     .     .

 

Their Idiot Song

.

These fellows, the old pagan said, surely are out of their mind – that old proudly impervious derelict skirted long ago by floodwaters of salvation:  Behold the great and gory handiwork of Death displayed for all on dazzling sheets this hour of day its twin nostrils plugged firmly with stoppers of wool and they ask of him:  Where is thy sting?

Sing on, good fellows, sing on!

Someday when it is you he decks out on his great iron bed with cotton wool for your breath, his massing odours mocking your pitiful makeshift defences of face powder and township ladies’ lascivious scent, these others roaming yet his roomy chicken coop will be singing and asking still but

YOU by then no longer will be in doubt!

 

.     .     .

Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930,

of the Igbo People.  He is a world-famous poet and writer,

and his first novel, “Things Fall Apart”, is among the most

widely-read books in African literature.

 

.     .     .     .     .


መልካም ፋሲካ / Melkam Fasika !


*     *     *     *     *

Elyas Mulu Kiros

“Missing Mom’s Cooking”

Here I crave

my mom’s cooking

on Easter eve

I die longing for

mom’s Doro Wot

mouth burning

spicy hot

And that Injera

flat bread

of primavera

that I enjoy

eating by hand

day after day.

I ask my mom

to send her son

the tasty spell

via cell phone

or aéropostale.

_____

Today, April 15th, is Ethiopian Easter Sunday.

We thank Elyas Mulu Kiros for this special 2012 Fasika poem !


कबीर Kabir: “Of the Musk Deer”: 15th-century Hindi poems

 

Kabir (144o-1518)

Of the Musk Deer

 

Musk lies in the musk deer’s own nave,

But roam in the forest he does – it to seek;

Alike, God pervades heart to heart,

But men of the world this don’t conceive.

*

In man himself the Master dwells,

But man, deluded, knows not this,

So similar to the musk deer who

Again and again the grass sniffs.

*

The seeker of Ram*, says Kabir,

To the Singhal Island** did march;

When in himself he was convinced,

He found that Ram pervaded his heart.

*

God exists, profuse, in each place,

So don’t think He’s less here and more there,

Those who say He’s far – He is far,

Those who know Him near – He’s near.

*

I knew God to be far away,

But He is ubiquitous – here and there;

Thou didst know Him to be far off,

He’s far off though very near.

_

* Ram, one of the incarnations of Vishnu, and

the central character of the Ramayana epic

** Today known as Sri Lanka

_

 

 

Of the Virtueless

 

It drizzled in graceful drizzles,

On the stone fell showers of rain,

Soil melted when it got watered,

But the stone showed no mark of change.

 

Of Thinking

 

Who utters as wells forth the tongue

Without thinking what he doth say,

Holding the sword of his tongue in hand

The souls of others he doth slay.

 

 

Of Contentment

 

Cow-rich, elephant-rich, horse-rich,

And rich treasures of precious stones,

All those riches are like the dust

Until to man contentment comes.

 

 

Of the Middle

 

If I say I’m Hindu, I’m not,

Nor as well a Muslim I’m,

An effigy of five elements

– in me plays the spark divine.

*

It’s not good in excess to speak,

Nor good in excess to keep mum,

To rain in excess is not good,

Nor good an excess of sun.

 

 

Of Pardon

 

Pardon suits the magnanimous,

One who is low mischiefs befit;

Speak!  In what way did Vishnu lose

When Bhrigu a kick did Him hit?

*

Where there’s mercy there’s religion;

Where there’s avarice there’s sin;

Where there is anger there is Death,

Where there’s pardon there God dwells in.

 

 

Kabir was born in 1440 in Lahartara (modern-day Varanasi), on the sacred Ganges River of India.

His mother, a Brahmin widow, had given birth to him long past the death of her husband – hence she

was socially disgraced.  She left her new-born in some shrubs where he was discovered and adopted by

Neema and Neeru, a Muslim couple who were weavers.

Kabir became a disciple of Ramananda, who revered Vishnu as one of the Forms of God.

But as his devotion to poetry grew hand in hand with the breadth of his religious education,

Kabir worked out his own distinctive spirituality, drawing upon both Hinduism and Islam,

and bringing together what is essential in each faith.

Biographer Evelyn Underhill wrote that upon Kabir’s death in 1518 ” his Muslim and Hindu disciples disputed the possession of his body;  which the Muslims wished to bury, the Hindus to burn.  As they argued together, Kabir appeared before them, and told them to lift the shroud and look at that which lay beneath.  They did so, and found in the place of the corpse a heap of flowers, half of which were buried by the Muslims at Maghar, and half carried by the Hindus to the holy city of Benares to be burned – fitting conclusion to a life which had made fragrant the most beautiful doctrines of two great creeds. ”

Poems translated from Hindi into English by Mohan Singh Karki


Niyi Osundare: “Àlùpàyídà” / “Metamorphosis”

 

Niyi Osundare 

Àlùpàyídà / Metamorphosis

 


I stay very long in the river

And I become a fish

With a head made of coral

And fins which tame the distance

Of billowing depths

*

I stay very long in the fish

And I become a mountain

With a mist-cradled crest

And feet carpeted by grass

Which sweetens dawnbreath with jasmine magic

*

I stay very long on the mountain

And I become a bird

With a net of polyglot straw

And songs which stir the ears

Of slumbering forests

*

I stay very long with the bird

And I become a road

With long dusty eyes

And limbs twining through the bramble

Like precocious pythons

*

I stay very long on the road

And I become a cigarette

Lighted both ends by powerful geysers,

Ash-winged firefly on nights

Of muffled darkness

*

I stay very long with the cigarette

And I become a clown

With a wide, painted face

And a belly stuffed to the brim

With rippling laughters

*

I stay very long with the clown

And I become a sage

With a twinkling beard

And fables which ply the yarn

Of grizzled memories

*

I stay very long in s-i-l-e-n-c-e

I become a Word.

 

 

 

Àlùpàyídà = the Yoruba word for Metamorphosis

_____

 

Niyi Osundare was born in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria, in 1947.

He is a poet, dramatist, and university professor,

now teaching in the USA.

Writing under successive dictatorial governments in Nigeria,

Osundare has always been passionate about free speech and

is political as a poet, knowing how very necessary that is in the

contemporary African context.  “To utter is to alter” is his belief;

we must use the power of words.


Niyi Osundare: “La palabra es un huevo” y “Comida de oído” / “The word is an egg” and “Ear food”

_____

Niyi Osundare  (nace 1947, Nigeria)

“La palabra es un huevo” *

 

 

Mi lengua es un fuego rosado

No le permitas que prenda fuego a tus orejas

Cuando los proverbios chocan

En La calle de risas esperandos

Y momentos murmurandos sacan

Un canto fúnebre de los labios del sol atardeciente

 

Contaremos los dientes

De la luna

Y cantaremos coronitas

Para las estrellas desaparecidas…

 

La Palabra, es un huevo la Palabra:

Si se cae en el saliente

De una lengua tropezando

 

Se quiebra sin reunirse.

 

 

 

* un proverbio del idioma yoruba

_____

 

Niyi Osundare  (born 1947, Nigeria)

“The word is an egg” *

 


My tongue is a pink fire

Don’t let it set your ears on fire

When proverbs clash

In the street of waiting laughters

And murmuring moments eke out

A dirge from the lips of the setting sun

 

We shall count the teeth

Of the moon

And sing little wreaths

For missing stars…

 

The Word, the Word

Is an egg:

If it falls on the outcrop

Of a stumbling tongue

 

It breaks

Ungatherably.

 

 

 

* a proverb from the Yoruba language

_____

 

“Comida de oído”

 

 

¿Lo has visto

a quién que puede alimentar a una multitud de orejas

Con siete pescados de imaginación

y tres panes de silencio?

 

¿Has visto a la Palabra

que brotó una serpiente

a la sorpresa frenética de Faraón?

 

Caminan estas Palabras sobre el mar

Y nunca se hunden.

 

_____

 

“Ear food”

 

 

Have you seen him

who can feed a multitude of ears

With seven fishes of fancy

And three loaves of silence?

 

Have you seen the Word

which  sprang a serpent

to Pharaoh’s frenetic surprise?

 

These Words walk on the sea

and they never sink.

 

_____

Traducción del inglés al español / Translation from English into Spanish:

Alexander Best


Hope springs eternal…