Miguelángel Meza's poetry chapbook, Dream Pattering Soles, was published this month by Ugly Duckling Presse in Elisa Taber's translation. A leading Guaraní poet, Meza was featured last year in the first installment of WWB's Indigenous Writing Project, which was devoted to Guaraní writing from Paraguay. In the poem featured here, Meza considers humanity's relationship to the environment.
Void
As day dims.
To Carlos Villagra Marsal.
Dry stream.
All the dry streams.
They intertwined, gushed, overflowed, cascaded.
Then, disappeared.
Small fish extinguished.
Small fish with gold scales,
bred by bodies of water that dried,
extinguished.
Man leans back to sleep.
His head smolders.
Dreams of his ancestors
intertwined, like water in the forest;
of water binged, bonfires,
dances in the dark, and resounding takuapu.
Man lies down to die.
Sees nobody.
Nobody sees his honey words
drip from the sky
and perforate the soil
to stow the brightest stars.
Man dimmed.
Sky descended.
They merged, void and earth,
our earth.
Void earth.
From Dream Pattering Soles, © Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021 by Miguelángel Meza. Translation © 2021 by Elisa Taber. Reprinted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
Related Reading:
“Dawn” by Miguelángel Meza, translated by Tracy K. Lewis and Miguelángel Meza
