BIO
Ignacio Carvajal is Costa Rican. His work has appeared OUT/CAST, Brain Mill Press' "Voices," and Seattle Escribe, as well as in the anthologies Primera Página: Poetry from the Latino Heartland and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States. Ignacio is a PhD Candidate in Latin American Literature at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a member of the Latino Writers Collective of Kansas City, the Taller Literario don Chico in San José, and the board of directors of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. His collection Plegarias won first place in the continental poetry contest Poetic Bridges by Casa Cultural de las Américas in Houston and will be published in 2019.
https://www.facebook.com/carvajalregidor/
twitter: @carvajalregidor
instagram: ignacio_carvajal_poesia
xik’ik'el ch’ich'[1]
this
metal bird
rattles
like death
as it
twists
above
the midwest
solace.
we can see
the river
as it
winds and rumbles
and then
as it
trickles past the damn
(to
protect us, this,
and to
quench us).
we may
not die of flood.
but my
sister, sitting beside me,
is not
so sure about the sturdiness
of this
here contraption:
xik’ik'el ch’ich', kacha che,
el metal que vuela
the
flying piece of metal.
she is
white knuckled hanging on
and
cannot look out the window
when i
tell her to look at that one place
where we
have so many times been.
she is a
brave one, my sister,
but she
is smart, too, and understands
we were
not given wings
for a
reason.
[1] Xik’ik'el ch’ich’ means airplane in K’iche’ Maya.
tukur[2]
desde una rama gris del bosque
el tukur
clava los soles
de sus
ojos sobre esta nuestra casa
donde
habitamos nosotros
y un muy
terco miedo
a que nos
oigan la lengua
a que nos
echen los perros
a que nos
quiten
la
bandera y el tiempo.
tukur
-
ave-magia-augurio-palabra -
acordate del
alimento
que en la
noche te brindamos
del sudor de
la frente
que
brotamos en tu campo.
intercedé por
nosotros
pedile al
cielo que nos regale
un tiempito
más
en esta
tierra.
[2] Tukur means “owl” in K’iche’ Maya.