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How are you, Panama?
Very well.
(Joe’s Bar and Jimmy’s Cabaret).
Yes?
Sí.
Brother Panamanian,
don’t you dream of Hostos and Martí?
I dream.
Yes?
Sí!
Reprinted from Man-Making Words: Selected Poems of Nicolás Guillén. Copyright © 1972 by Roberto Marquez and David Arthur McMurray. Published by the University of Massachusetts Press.
translated from the Spanish by Aaron Coleman
This is the Ursa Major.
Hunted down June 4th, ’64,
by a sputnik on the prowl.
(Do not touch the stars
on its skin.)
Now seeking
a tamer.
La Osa Mayor
translated from the Spanish by Aaron Coleman
The Aconcagua. Beast,
solemn and frigid. Head
white with eyes of motionless stone.
Travels in slow herds
with other similar animals
through rock-strewn desolations.
In the night,
its soft, heavy lips graze
the cold hands of the moon.
El Aconcagua
translated from the Spanish by Aaron Coleman
The Cloud Sanctuary.
Capacity: 84 clouds.
A new experience, because there are
clouds from sunup to sundown,
and many from different countries.
(Management forecasts more.)
Lanky-tongued like a bird,
reddish,
the daybreak clouds,
made by the farmer’s brief dreams
and hollow dawns.
Restrained,
made of dry and firm cotton,