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Issue 22
Indigenous Literature

Six Haikus

  • by Antonio Guzmán Gómez

 

Takin aketik,
k’unil na yu’un te’tikil mutetik
te ya spas spechechike.

 

Dry bushes,
soft threads for birds
building their nests.

 

•

 

Ta jujun sab,
ta yach’ te’tikil,
ya sjach’ ye te k’aale.

 

Every morning
the sun yawns
on its new mountain.

 

•

 

Te sakil nichimetike,
ja’ slamanel k’inal
yu’un te pas k’ope.

 

The white flowers
are empires of peace
standing against war.

 

•

 

Sakub k’inal,
K’un ya xbeen bael te xojobe,
ya xlaj ta smalel k’aal.

 

Dawn,
the light slowly dissolves,
dying in the afternoon.

 

•

 

Tulan ja’al,
ja’ ya xbeen koel
yu’un ya sbuts’ lum k’inal.

 

Torrential rain,
water flowing
to kiss the earth.

 

•

 

Te k’aale yakal ta bael
ta mal k’aal ya xcham bael,
ya xtil sk’aal te xik’e.

 

Time flies
in the dying afternoon,
its wings burning.

 

From the book Kuxinel bit’il k’ajk’/Vivir como fuego/Live like Fire
Translations into English by Paul M. Worley

 

Photo: White flower, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, de Alexander Montes, Unsplash.
  • Antonio Guzmán Gómez

Antonio Guzmán Gómez (1982) lives in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, and is a speaker of the Tenejapa variant of Tseltal. He holds a degree in Social Anthropology from the Department of Social Sciences of the Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas and an MA in Education Science from the Universidad Mesoamericana. He is a member of the Abriendo Caminos (Clearing Paths): José Antonio Reyes Matamoros cultural organization. He is the author of Kuxinel bit’il k’ajk’ / Vivir como fuego (2017) and Xch’ulel Balam / Kuxinel bit’il k’ajk’ // Espíritu Jaguar / Vivir como fuego (2021) and the co-author of  La Fuerza de la Tierra (Taller literario Bertolt Brecht, 2004), Sab Xojob / Vapor de luz (poetry anthology, 2007), Ts’unun: los sueños del colibrí, poemario en cuatro lenguas de Chiapas: Ch’ol, tsotsil, zoque y tseltal (2017), and Anhelo de reposo (poetry anthology, 2019). His poems and essays have been published in Nuestra Sabiduría, revista multilingüe, Ojarasca (cultural supplement of La Jornada), Revista Marcapiel, and the Revista Documentos Lingüísticos y Literarios de la Universidad Austral de Chile.

  • Paul M. Worley
thisoneworley

Paul M. Worley is Associate Professor of Global Literature at Western Carolina University. He is the author of Telling and Being Told: Storytelling and Cultural Control in Contemporary Yucatec Maya Literatures (2013; oral performances recorded as part of this book project are available at tsikbalichmaya.org), and with Rita M. Palacios is co-author of the forthcoming Unwriting Maya Literature: Ts’íib as Recorded Knowledge (2019). He is a Fulbright Scholar, and 2018 winner of the Sturgis Leavitt Award from the Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies. In addition to his academic work, he has translated selected works by Indigenous authors such as Hubert Malina, Adriana López, and Ruperta Bautista, serves as editor-at-large for México for the journal of world literature in English translation, Asymptote, and as poetry editor for the North Dakota Quarterly.

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