We present this work in honor of the poet’s 170th birthday.
José Martí Cuban 1853 – 1895
I wish to leave the world By its natural door; In my tomb of green leaves They are to carry me to die. Do not put me in the dark To die like a traitor; I am good, and like a good thing I will die with my face to the sun
I know, friend, it is all within me as in a sonorously mute coffer. All sleeps within me, tremulously quiet, and in active rest, in a brief palpitation of palpitating entrails, in such sweet presence as to be barely presence at all… I know, friend, my friend, blinder than dead serpents, my friend, softer than overripe fruit: It is all within me.
It is all within me silent, subterranean, fused in pale stratas of light and silence, nourishing my life, growing my life…
There are sorrows that wear red in the streets. There is a pride that screams. There are joys in colourful dress and songs that rent the sun. There are many things, my friend, many things – my friend, softer than overripe fruit – at the surface of its skin. And in me all is silent, dimmed, so silent I can even forget it, as dimmed as a child dying. All as in a mutely sonorous coffer trembling in stillness…
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.
Carilda Oliver Labra
Cuban
1922 – 2018
I.
Father of yesterday who made hope full of children and debts. I conjure your hand which was never dry and never knew stone or spear.
When you were judge, you were ill with insomnia… as you longed to save so many thieves. Let the sparrows chirp peace for you and may you have playthings at last!
I make believe, now, that you’re sleeping and your affectionate greeting, your amazement, lives on. My life now moves with entropy;
Now, I’m truly the sad little daughter that can no longer lean on your shoulder because you died in January, Father.
II.
Grief arrives so violently like the rain after the dawn; today my smile is different: an invisible tear that doesn’t weep.
(I tell myself in secret: maybe he’s coming by, and not only as he knows of this grieving but because I still wait anxiously in case he asks for the key to our house…)
I can’t believe it… I need you, and you are dead, my father, little dead one. This time you are checkmated.
Like a crazy person, in super human delirium, I lift your chess piece with my hand and place you playing in the game!
III.
I have dressed in white, green, red, because grief does not rhyme with love. It has been a long time, my father, since your eyes refused darkness or glare.
Don’t let hail and snow fall on your innocent and foreign grave. Let the birth of spring sing to you let a flower exude perfume on the ninth!
I reserve the glory of your room for you, a happy sparkle of the sun, that I keep apart that piece of earth where you were born, your robes, your books, your saw… It’s not enough now to love you so much: you’re dead, my father, you’re dead.
IV.
Your comfortable chair… where is it? Your student violin… how does it sound? You buried pennies in the sand and gave my mother other names.
I keep all your letters and pictures. In my dream your prostate is cured. On the patio floor and in my affection, your last shoes walk on.
I want to see you beyond the shutter. Come, spirit; come, my supportive angel. I no longer know what to do, what to say,
because I long to eat breakfast with my father, my sage, my almsman, at 81 Tirrey Avenue.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 70th birthday.
Reina María Rodríguez
Cuban
b. 1952
Naturally, Flaubert’s parrot could not be called Chucho, his author wouldn’t stick him with a name like that. From which follows the importance of names. But in the stories last night —the reconstruction of a postcard which we were creating to resemble Christmas— chess pieces nearly dismembered in the children’s hands before midnight, they had to pull out the parrot with his blue half-exposed chest feathers and the nun who comes when he sings “o whore, o whore, o whore,” and her face colors all the way to the wine all the way to believing herself so —though she wasn’t— with the pleasure of momentarily believing herself something she is not, spilling shame into the alien cup. Is it true that after an outcry they erupt – the things we believed ourselves to be?
II
The parrot Loulou “…used to descend the stairs by setting the curve of her beak on the steps.” Then she disappeared forever and her owner, Felicity, never got over it, or the nun either. The family blames themselves and they still make the sign of the cross, for they didn’t train him to the level of the occasion: he was not Flaubert’s parrot who upheld a name with her hauteur – her meaning – just an ordinary parrot named, to his disadvantage, Chucho.
We present this work in honor of the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Dulce Maria Loynaz Cuban 1902 – 1997
In my garden, roses: I don’t want to give you roses that tomorrow… that tomorrow you won’t have.
In my garden, birds with crystal song: I do not give them to you; they have wings to fly.
In my garden, bees craft a fine hive: A minute’s sweetness… I don’t want to give you that!
For you, the infinite or nothing: what is immortal or this mute sadness you won’t understand… The unnamable sadness of not having something to give to someone who carries on the forehead a portion of eternity.
Leave, leave the garden… Don’t touch the roses: things that die should not be touched.
Amber. Marble. Sapphire. The jingling babble of magic treasure. May my bold desires make the most of such enchantment. Let me stir them around with my hand.
Alabaster and azure. Day’s blood. Stones in a heap. Roses made of milk. Great laughter of light. My longing grasps and tumbles the precious jewels.
Sea. Sky. Sun in my arms! Fire of bright diamonds playing! Malachite, topaz. Serpentine ribbons sparkling in my hands! Caught in my fingers, wreaths of turquoise, lapis lazuli, jade, aquamarine!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.
Heberto Padilla Cuban 1932 – 2000
They asked that man if they could take his time and join it to history. They asked for his hands, because in difficult times there is nothing better than a good pair of hands. They asked for his eyes that once had tears so he could ponder the bright side (especially the bright side of life) because for horror one terrified eye is enough. They asked for his lips, dry and cracked, to affirm, to erect, with each affirmation, a dream (the high dream); they asked for his legs, hard and gnarled, (his old high-stepping legs) because in difficult times is there anything better than a pair of legs for building or trench-digging? They asked him for the forest that nourished him as a child with its obedient tree. They asked for his chest, his heart, his shoulders. They told him that it was strictly necessary. Later they explained that all this giving would be pointless unless he gave up his tongue, because in difficult times there is nothing so useful for stopping hatred or lies. And finally they begged him please, to begin to walk because in difficult times that is without a doubt the decisive test.
‘Son, are you suffering?’ (It was your voice, mother, speaking to me… and your cheek and your smell and the warm tenderness of your lips. I became seas and marshes: All the fallen stars plunging into my waters, Unrelenting waters, mother, ungovernable.) ‘Is that you, my son?’ (As though your finger touched in the midst of the night’s depths soothing my brow, and I, shuddering and with choking throat wracked by boundless pain. Mother, my bones, my tendons hurt; the joints of my blood hurt; this stone wounding my breast hurts… and the jaws tearing at my back.) You there as limpid as a moist jasmine flower! ‘Son, are you suffering?’
Very much the bride with a belly of five months she made her devotions to insomnia. Three knocks on wood cracked her open. The thieves shrieked around the splinters. Very much the bride she cold-creamed her face, abandoned in the middle of her honeymoon. “Let battle commence!” the little boys said.
II.
Let the stone-ground light exist. We were not inhibited and trod on each others’ feet as when dancing a bolero. I bumped into his groin, splitting it on purpose. Villain that I was trod on it I poured cold water on his message. I told him I was tender, that I anchored my self at street corners. Let the yellow light of oregano exist.