Quinta de los Molinos for WS Passing the gatekeepers four times with the rite answers we left you there in the garden flowing fountain of underwater plants fresh as a Canadian river in Central Havana in the middle of a drought In a space hallowed by tobacco and cedar smoke sealed from the small noise of Sunday buses hoot of freight trains in the night of the Canadian bush far off in the company of doves and dogs you’ll help with their care no doubt and they with yours Among foliage whose names we don’t know shapes new to us kidney-sized pods of many seeds a red and yellow tree of flowers and globes on ropes we left you my Viennese stone mason Passing the talking stick poems and images climbing the thread of smoke dissolving at last above the water laying tobacco, we paid thanks and honour Near the painted sacred ceiba who sleeps on her curled tail when no one is looking we will visit again your palpable absence present twines, holds the ground for us
Inheritance for Steven Kaal* Who inherits his copy of my book – so kindly bought so thankfully to him inscribed, I wonder on hearing that a friend has died. Not thrown out, I hope Will go to a relative, down the hatch to a second-hand bin, is this callous? No, another way he will go on as recycling readers wonder about this Steve of words and books.
* Note on Steven Kaal
Steven Kaal, a historian, translator and interpreter, and his companion Lesvia Vela founded and ran the Librairie Abya-Yala (meaning the continent of life or the American continents in their entirety, in the language of the Kuna of Colombia and Panama), from 1995 to 2004. Revolving around all facets of Latin American culture, their wonderful store on Boulevard St-Laurent in Montréal was teeming with books in French, Spanish, English and Indigenous languages, and hosted book launches, poetry readings, art exhibitions and just plain good old conversation among supporters of Latin American culture and solidarity. After the bookstore closed, Steven worked mostly as a translator and interpreter. He died much too young, in 2018.
Jagadish Chandry
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