When You Call Me
When you call me
I’ll go, get into the boat
that waits to carry me across those waters
that drag away everything in their path.
The day you call me
my soul will rejoice,
taking on the colors of the mountains and the rivers,
singing a brilliant song
on a mountain of the sun’s rays.
When you call me
I won’t say anything
I’ll just get into that boat
I’ll travel with my soul at peace,
because that day the mountains,
the birds and the coyotes
will run faster than ever,
remembering me, a man who once existed
in this beautiful place we call earth.
T’ja uoprue e quisco
I am fulfilled
I Write Senselessly
I write senselessly,
because I have been robbed,
I have been stripped of my land,
I write senselessly because they want to enslave me,
to a world that devours us,
to a world that man has created,
where those who belong to a different ethnicity
are not accepted,
simply because we protect the only thing that
we have,
this land that gives us shelter.
I write senselessly,
because that’s how they have forced me to.
Sitting on a Chair
Sitting on a chair,
I see the time pass by,
and with it,
the extinction of the flames of my Bröran people.
There! Yes, there!
Under the shadow of that tree,
the memories of this time are gathered,
refusing to disappear.
Sitting on a chair,
I hear a beautiful hymn,
which springs from the waters of the majestic Diquís,1
that refuses to be dominated.
Sitting on a chair,
I see time go by,
I see far away a shadow pass by,
and with it,
all the memories of my people,
who have vanished with some of the elders.
Sitting on a chair,
I hear the voices of some who have left,
taking the hope of a better world with them,
of a world that refuses to die,
embracing us without hate.
1 Also, known as Dikís or Dikés, this term means “the big river.” Here it refers specifically to the Río Grande of Térraba.
“When You Call Me” translated by Paul M. Worley; “I Write Senselessly” and “Sitting on a Chair”
translated by Jorge Alberto Tapia Ortiz
