Translated by LOREN GOODMAN
In my town there’s a big rock
called Tum Ab’aj.
The sun and the moon take care of it.
It’s not a mute rock,
it’s a drum of stone.
It’s covered with a fluff
we refer to as toad shit.
A road, a river
and the rock in the middle.
Those who don’t know about it
Pass without noticing
Not the old ones;
they stop a while
burn incense for him, copal,
candles & honey.
When it rains, the stone sleeps;
tum, tum, tum, tum.
Humberto Ak’abal, a Guatemalan poet of K’iché Maya ethnicity, concieves and writes his poems in the K’iché language and translates them himself into Spanish. Well known throughout Europe and South America, he is a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in France and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Loren Goodman is the author of Famous Americans, selected by W. S. Merwin for the Yale Series of Younger Poets; Suppository Writing; and New Products.
