Ixcán Jungle
There I left my navel
up on the
treetop.
There I learned how to walk
with my naked feet
on the muddy fields of the CPRs.
There, among the palm trees
I used to pull out thorns
from the soles of my feet.
There I learned to be chased
and to erase my footprints
as means of survival.
That’s why I wasn’t there to
leave my prints on the road,
but for the roads
to leave marks on my feet.
Names of Villages
YICHKAN:
Seat of height.
Q’AN TX’OTX’:
Where the land is yellow.
XACHAN:
Where the land is shaped like a fork.
TE’MUX:
Tree with navel.
KOJ KAN:
Lion standing up high.
CHI’B’LAQ:
Where the pacayas are plenty.
NUB’IL HA’:
Where the waters meet.
Among the Trees
Emergency Plan
during the armed conflict,
starving kids out on the CPRs
used to scream:
a rag
went inside their mouths
to close their yelling
by the horses.
Instead of tortilla
they swallowed their voice.
Even today, hunger echoes
inside the scream of many.
My Calabash
I filled my calabash
with puddled sky
from faraway gorges.
I brought it to you
because you are flower of hillside
and you know that the sky
likes to puddle
in the gorges.
My calabash has the shape
of my heart
in it you can drink
my mountain love.
My Mother
My mother
has her age embroidered
on the palms of her hands.
And they’re well pressed
on every tortilla she claps.
To eat her tortillas
is to learn the taste of her wrinkles.
from Wings and Roots
Sabino Esteban
translated from the Q’anjob’al and Spanish by José García Escobar
Editor’s Note: The translator worked primarily from the Spanish and consulted with the poet, as described in the translator’s note.
Read the original in Q’anjob’al and Spanish
Listen to the poems read in the original Q’anjob’al by the poet:
Sabino Esteban’s work, though minimal, is earthy, otherworldly, mystical, and profoundly human. Much like a branch cracking underfoot, his poetry is a musical, memorable, and seismic snap. And that snap, he’s quick to point out, comes from his forefathers and foremothers. “Whenever our elder people give us any advice, the message is clear and unadorned,” he says. I wanted to respect that brevity, not just to mimic the structure of the poem, but also to bring out that potency—trust solely in the language used and the images.
However brief his sentences may be, they are often formed by words denser that are in his original language.
The word “wrinkles” at the end of “My Mother,” for example, comes from the Spanish arrugas. This is a pretty straightforward translation. However, arrugas is the distillation of a more complex linguistic construction in Q’anjob’al that does not just refer to the physical aspect found in the skin. When Sabino writes “chi wab’k’apax sumumihal loji yab’ilal,” he’s also writing about his mother’s trajectory through life, he refers to her seniority with respect and admiration. Wrinkles, arrugas, are not just symptoms of old age, but signs of wisdom and experience.
“Other words or phrases also carry some type of spiritual meaning,” he says, via telephone, all the way from Ixcán, merely half an hour away from the Mexican border.
This is, admittedly, a translation of a translation. Though, Sabino doesn’t see it that way. He told me that as soon as he finishes a poem in Q’anjob’al, he works on the Spanish version, making them “extensions of each other” or “the result of the same feeling.” And that his books come out in both languages making no mention of a traducción, because he feels there is no separation between the two. But since I don’t speak any Mayan language, I had to trust on the Spanish version and asked Sabino to fish out some of those dense words.
While tackling these Siamese poems, I briefly considered trying to replicate Q’anjob’al’s idiomatic vastness. But that meant betraying the rhythm and succinctness which, I feel, are more important in Sabino’s work than complete accuracy. To bring these poems into English, I toiled around that seismic snap I mentioned earlier. Even when English is completely unequipped to imitate Q’anjob’al’s immensity, it wraps around perfectly to the brevity needed for these poems.
I chose cadence and tradition over complexity. I followed the tremors and ignored the aftershocks. Those belong to Sabino.
However brief his sentences may be, they are often formed by words denser that are in his original language.
The word “wrinkles” at the end of “My Mother,” for example, comes from the Spanish arrugas. This is a pretty straightforward translation. However, arrugas is the distillation of a more complex linguistic construction in Q’anjob’al that does not just refer to the physical aspect found in the skin. When Sabino writes “chi wab’k’apax sumumihal loji yab’ilal,” he’s also writing about his mother’s trajectory through life, he refers to her seniority with respect and admiration. Wrinkles, arrugas, are not just symptoms of old age, but signs of wisdom and experience.
“Other words or phrases also carry some type of spiritual meaning,” he says, via telephone, all the way from Ixcán, merely half an hour away from the Mexican border.
This is, admittedly, a translation of a translation. Though, Sabino doesn’t see it that way. He told me that as soon as he finishes a poem in Q’anjob’al, he works on the Spanish version, making them “extensions of each other” or “the result of the same feeling.” And that his books come out in both languages making no mention of a traducción, because he feels there is no separation between the two. But since I don’t speak any Mayan language, I had to trust on the Spanish version and asked Sabino to fish out some of those dense words.
While tackling these Siamese poems, I briefly considered trying to replicate Q’anjob’al’s idiomatic vastness. But that meant betraying the rhythm and succinctness which, I feel, are more important in Sabino’s work than complete accuracy. To bring these poems into English, I toiled around that seismic snap I mentioned earlier. Even when English is completely unequipped to imitate Q’anjob’al’s immensity, it wraps around perfectly to the brevity needed for these poems.
I chose cadence and tradition over complexity. I followed the tremors and ignored the aftershocks. Those belong to Sabino.
Sabino Esteban (b. 1981) is a Guatemalan poet of Mayan Q’anjob’al descent. For two years, during the Guatemalan Civil War, his family hid in Chiapas, Mexico. In 1984 they made their way to Guatemala and joined the Los Limones refugee camp that was part of Ixcán’s Comunidades de Población en Resistencia (CPR)—communities that provided, among other things, shelter and education to its members. Esteban grew up and went to school in the CPRs. He has published the books of poetry Sq’aqaw yechel aqanej/Gemido de huellas (2007), Yetoq’ junjun b’ijan aq’al/Con de pedazo de carbon (2001), Xik’ej K’al Xe’ej/Alas y Raíces (2013) and Sq’och Xajaw/La escalera de la luna (2017). He has been invited to poetry festivals in Guatemala, Spain, Mexico, and the United States. His poetry has been featured in anthologies in Guatemala and abroad.
José García Escobar is a journalist, fiction writer, translator, and former Fulbright scholar from Guatemala. He received his M.F.A. in creative writing from The New School in New York City. His writing has appeared in The Evergreen Review, Guernica, and Words Without Borders. He is Asymptote’s editor-at-large for the Central American region and currently works as a journalist in Plaza Pública.
