América Tiene Amores

America has loves,
its stars are constellated.
America has brothers
who seek it and call it.

And they all come together
and embrace, looking at it;
countries that are its body
woven with joys.

And they arrive dancing, they come
celebrating sunrises
and intertwine with their songs
the lullabies that rock it.

It welcomes with the Antilles
the Cuban laughter,
Haiti with its ancient rite
and the Dominican light.

Regions of quiet peaks
recognize its gaze
and dance its joy
Honduran and Mexican.

Breath of the clean air
is gifted by Nicaragua;
a feathered serpent adorns
the fervor of Guatemala.

The palms of Costa Rica
are the hands that link
with Salvadoran land
and Panama, winged waist.

The eternal arrow resurges
from its unbound soils;
it's wrapped in the whirlwinds
of Venezuelan love.

Weight of the mountain range
with its scattered hand
and the air blooms orchids
among Colombian arepas.

And they all come together
and embrace, looking at it;
countries that are its body
woven with joys.

Then the wind appears
from Ecuador, and noon
announces a golden meeting
of tremors and caresses.

Next to it, Brazil murmurs
and fills it with clear waters,
of rhythms and extensions,
of mysteries and races.

Thus, it is reached
by coast, mountain, and highland;
it's embraced by the whole enigma
with the enlightened Indian.

Bolivia and Peru seek it
in the adorned land
and feel the warm afternoon
nocturnal and Paraguayan.

Later, Uruguay delivers
their rolling hills
and Argentina comes singing,
all sun, all morning.

And finally, pure Chile arrives
and this American soil
understands that it is one
its love and its holy body.

Narrative IV (Luis Advis)

Advancing towards a vertex of time
your children learned the word:
that one they would always feel
so difficult, quixotic, or distant.

They whispered its letters of leather,
traversed its radiant syllables
and the sound, a reflection of another sky,
extended through wheat and cornfields.

And so it was that one day it appeared
like the flight of a passing bird
and another day they lost the signs
and wandered in vain after its trail.

Word freedom, the welcome,
costly freedom, so awaited;
longed-for freedom, the so absent.
Freedom, how many times betrayed!

Because it was never enough to long for it
and think of its design of clear voice:
the path that attracted travelers
many times led to another exit.

Because in its name some confused
what's divine, what's human, and what's inhuman
or sometimes invoked its presence
sowing suffering and dread.

Because, perhaps, the wolf of this world
is the man who would stalk man
is the man who would encircle man
is the man who would hunt man
is the man who would kill man.