We present this work in honor of the poet’s 135th birthday.
José Eustasio Rivera Colombian 1888 – 1928
Simple singer of a great discontent, Among the shrubs the canopy keeps hidden, Troubling the foliage with soft lament, Nibbling myrtle, sour grape pips – wood pigeon!
Sings coo-roo-roo, glimpsing day’s first ascent And later evening’s brief reflected vision, Sees from the gúaimaro’s¹ overspreading tent Silent peace fill the slopes, that tree’s dominion.
Half-open the wings iridescent in the light, Solitude – poor soul! – saddens its delight, And it fluffs up its head feathers, a light hood.
To the maternal heartbeat of domains it holds In its own entrails, it croons to mountains, folds Them in sleep; light drowns in a dark wood.
We present this work in honor of the 160th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Julio Arboleda Pombo Colombian 1817 – 1862
Unhappy who seeks in appearance bliss and ephemeral praise, and changes his mind with the change of the versatile public conscience!
The present is your only providence; yields to the blowing of the wind that throws him to good without faith and evil without hope; that in erring with the world is his science.
And happy the independent male who, free from worldly bondage, aspires, between pain and sorrow,
to the eternal truth, not to the present one, knowing that the world and its truths they are only vanity of vanities!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.
Meira Delmar Colombian 1922 – 2009
There’s nothing like this bliss of feeling so alone in mid-afternoon and in the middle of the wheat field; under the summer sky and in the arms of the wind I am one more ear of wheat.
I have nothing in my soul,not even a small sorrow, nor an old remembrance that would make me dream… I only have this bliss of being alone in the afternoon, just with the afternoon!
A very long silence is falling on the field, for already the sun is leaving and already the wind is leaving; who would give me forever this inexpressible bliss of being, alone and serene, a miracle of peace!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 205th birthday.
Julio Arboleda Pombo
Colombian
1817 – 1862
I saw the red sun’s serene light troubled and at one point its brilliant face disappeared and the sky darkened, with a darkness full of horror.
The stormy South winds sound angry, their anger grows, and the storm grows, and the shoulders of Atlas shudder high Olympus, with a dreadful thunderclap.
But then I saw the black veil of rain part, and by the previous light the brilliant and clear day was restored.
And again I looked upon the sky’s ornate splendor, and I said “Who knows if I should expect an equal change in my fortune?”
Welcome to this house your home, here you breathe the bitter cold of that absent breath. Welcome to this house of anger and tears, indeed you can sit where your footsteps run out where your skin dries. The house has changed a bit —you’ll forgive me— but I’ve avoided painting it so that the cracks of time will give it a little bit of that familiar tinge.
It is the same house, don’t be afraid, that same one that we built some time ago, waiting to be alone enough to live in it.
At its corners, there’s no movement to recall the drawn-out breathing of other days. Not even air brings news of its dead. I walk along the secret shore of things and in them I see myself, in their coat of dust as if to shield them from their own fate. I think of the men who are now sinking tepidly into sleep. To what uncertain sea do they surrender? What wind propels their ships? To what port are they pushed? Dark the moment when my memory tries for a phantom dialogue reflected in stone, in the vigil of the dispossessed. Long, silent, like the death not uttered by these streets.
I am a bourgeois lady and have a swollen belly. I try to write my thoughts despite my sore throat.
I behave the way some others want. In common ground, the standard lie. But, for human beings it is despicable to bear labels which say: “Dry clean only.” “Handle with care.”
I have been a prodigious child, a little brat, a bad student, a beauty queen, a fashion model, and one of those that advertise soups or sundries.
I got myself into this inevitable mess, by falling in love, then sacrificing a handsome man, turning him into a husband, a sad situation.
(Not to mention what kind of person I have become!)
I have committed an inconvenient social crime: adding five children to the crowd.
I have failed as a mother, and a wife, as a lover, as a reader of philosophy.
All I can do, with sad mediocrity, is to be a bourgeois wife, unforgivably inconsequential, deaf and blind: a useless kind of human mind.
And that is why I always have a swollen belly, and sometimes I want to scream with such anger, that my own raging words do irritate my throat.
Then I write poetry which has the sound of a bass cord inside my core. Because I know the truth: that there’s a war, and violence, and crime each single day, while I am at the same time sitting here with no fear… For dumb, so doomed. For deaf So damned.
Not knowing what to do I choose inertia. I look the other way. But inside myself, I cry. Because I remember the hunger, the children in tears watching us with open eyes… far away or near, the children as real as I.
At exactly the same hour we the ladies, the socialites keep sitting here blinded, surrounded by disposable happiness.
I do nothing to see if we can move the world against poverty and drugs, against violence and war!
Instead there’s this insanity, staying still, contented with being just ass holes.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 75th birthday.
Juan Manuel Roca Colombian b. 1946
After writing on paper the word coyote You must watch out that the meat-craving word Does not take over the page, Does not manage to hide Behind the word jacaranda To wait for the word hare to pass by And then tear it apart. In order to prevent it, To sound the alarm When the coyote stealthily Prepares its ambush, Some old masters Who know the spells of language Recommend tracing the word match Rubbing it against the word stone And lighting up the word fire To scare it away. There is no coyote or jackal, no hyena or jaguar, No puma or wolf thar won’t flee When fire converses with air.
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