Yesterday I found a cloud, crying.
She told me she was bringing water
to the city
and got lost.
She was looking for a landscape
the city had swallowed.
Barefoot, sad, and alone
she turned back
and rained again in the fields;
the bright-winged xaras and sanates
had a little party.
And the frogs sang.
Humberto Ak’abal (1952–2019) was a K’iche’ Maya poet from Guatemala. His collection 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, recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, died on January 28, 2019. A bilingual selected edition of his work, If Today Were Tomorrow (translated by Michael Bazzett), is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in June. (updated 4/2024)
