LEAVES
Dry leaves:
love letters
the trees
would like to forget.
And yet!
they keep sprouting,
and greener every time.
Mountain love
is wild,
bucking against oblivion.
Author and Translator Bios
Humberto Ak’abal (1952–2019) was a K’iche’ Maya poet from Guatemala. His book Guardián de la caída de agua (Guardian of the Waterfall) was named book of the year by Association of Guatemalan Journalists and received their Golden Quetzal award in 1993. In 2004, he declined to receive the Guatemala National Prize in Literature because it is named for Miguel Ángel Asturias, whom Ak’abal accused of encouraging racism. Ak’abal, a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, passed away on 28 January 2019.
Michael Bazzett is the author of four books of poetry, most recently The Echo Chamber. His work has appeared in Granta, The Threepenny Review, The Sun, The Nation, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares, and his verse translation of the Mayan creation epic, The Popol Vuh (Milkweed, 2018), was longlisted for the National Translation Award as well as named one of 2018’s best books of poetry by the NY Times. His translation of the selected poems of Humberto Ak’abal, If Today Were Tomorrow, was published by Milkweed in 2024. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in both poetry and translation, he lives in Minneapolis.
© Humberto Ak'abal. Translation © by Michael Bazzett. All rights reserved.