Claudia D. Hernández

Acentos Review

BIO

Claudia D. Hernández was born and raised in Guatemala. She’s a photographer, poet,translator, and a bilingual educator residing in Los Angeles. She writes short stories, children’s stories, and poetry in Spanish, English, and sometimes weaves in Poqomchiʼ, an indigenous language of her Mayan heritage. Claudia holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.Various online literary journals and anthologies throughout the United States, the UK,Canada, Mexico, and Spain have published her work. She is the founder of the ongoing project: Today’s Revolutionary Women of Color.

Photo credit:  Jason Mahlin

Something Wants To Be Born: A Poem

                  After V. Huidobro’s poem: Someone Was To Be Born

 

I rode fifty miles today on my bike, from Southeast L.A. to

Belmont Shore. I carried Huidobro’s poems on my back,

 

the only copy to travel library to library—from South Gate—

my city, to Norwalk—your city. No one usually checks it out,

 

except for you and I. No one has ever taken it on a bike ride,

except for I—to another city, another county. At the pier,

 

I rest on a bench next to the men who fish. I read. They fish.

Carefully they adorn their cemented benches with heavy

 

blankets; fish-buckets half-empty with muted water; and their

plastic containers—bursting with bait. Why don’t they fish where

 

the fish co-exist? This is shallow water. They need to go where

it’s deep, or somewhere in between, where deep water confronts

 

shallow water. The fisherman next to me patiently waits. I open

my book to “Alguien iba a nacer” It is here, where I find your

 

pencil scribbles on the page. The fisherman next to me talks

to his line: “Come to papa!” as he firmly jerks backwards and up.

 

He reels it in slowly. I turn to the book’s margin and read: “epigraph

for ‘border’ poem”—the title of your last socially conscious poem.

 

The fisherman next to me pulls in a small fish. He doesn’t bother

to place it in his empty bucket. He unhooks the fish and lets it free.

 

 


Armada con Flor y Canto

 

“Elevo mis cantos, Yo, Macuilxóchitl,

con ellos alegro al dador de la vida,

¡Comience la danza!”

                       ~Princesa Macuilxochitzin

 

 

Fuiste Guerrera Águila

en el tiempo de los Aztecas

 

Tiempos ancestrales que

brillaron con riqueza

 

Derramaste flor y canto

perfumando tierras secas

 

Yaciste como jade serpentino

entre plumas de Quetzal turquesa

 

De tu boca brotó el sol que

cantó la magia de tus llanos

 

Con tus labios retrataste

las batallas de tu gente

 

Tu espina se arraigó a la tierra

que te vio bailar el arte de guerrear

 

Macuilxochitzin~Quinta Flor

Poetisa Guerrera Águila

 

 

 

Macuilxochitzin was the only poetess among Aztec poets who was published for writing a chronicle about the battles of King Axayácatl. She was the only prehistoric woman poet who got published during her time.  


Armada con Flor y Canto” was previously published by La Noria Literary Journal.

© The Acentos Review 2015