Juan Carlos Galeano

Obstacles

Each day the boy spends more time in the land of ants.
He says that when he's grown he wants to be an engineer
with real trucks and bulldozers.
"If you work like the ants, you could raise pyramids
like those in Egypt," his father tells him.
On their pathways, all the ants care about
is winter catching up to them.
Sometimes, the boy causes them setbacks, centuries of work.

Translated by James Kimbrell and Rebecca Morgan

A canoe flies over the landing…

A canoe flies over the landing, and main street, but doesn't stop.
We play her favorite songs; holding gifts, we invite her down.
From their little towns in the sky, the planets and the prettiest stars wink at her.
We wish the canoe would come visit; wish she would take us to another river,
to other towns, to someplace else...
(In our body's rivers, desire comes and goes from an insecure port called heart).
But the canoe makes foam in the clouds with her oars and doesn't budge from her spot.
Why doesn't the canoe come to our town? Why doesn't she even listen to her own songs?
Why doesn't she want to row to the stars?
Perhaps in another river, another town; perhaps in another life, someplace else...

Translated by James Kimbrell and Rebecca Morgan

Juan Carlos Galeano

<em>Edit Poetry</em> Juan Carlos Galeano

Juan Carlos Galeano was born in the Colombian Amazon. He is the author of several books of poetry and translations of American poetry. His work inspired by Amazonian cosmologies has been published and anthologized internationally and widely translated. Magazines and journals such as The Atlantic Monthly, Field, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, and Antioch Review have published his poems. Other works include a collection of folktales Cuentos Amazónicos (2007), Folktales of the Amazon (2009), as well as a film he co-directed and co-produced, The Trees Have a Mother (2008). He teaches Latin American poetry and cultures of the Amazon at Florida State University.