Title: The Envoy #111 – The official newsletter of the CCLA – Canada Cuba Literary Alliance by Wet Ink Books

THE ENVOY The official newsletter of the

Canada Cuba Literary Alliance I.S.S.N. – 1911‐0693

June, 2021 Issue 111 www.CanadaCubaLiteraryAlliance.

photo taken by Norge Gallardo Pérez and edited by Jorge Alberto

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

A WORD ABOUT

Father´s Day

by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias The Envoy Assistant Editor Just as we rejoiced with Moms in The Envoy 110, now we celebrate another noteworthy date. I have compiled some father-related poems from different sources, written by fine Canadian and Cuban poets. There is a popular saying in Cuba, “Anyone can be called a father; but there is only one mother.” While I support fully a mother´s unique significance in our lives, the saying is arguable from many sides. Firstly, male parents can be as devoted as mothers. There are many examples in life—I know exceptional fathers whose lives revolve around their children (Jorge, our Editor-in-chief, is one of them)—yet I also call to mind Kramer vs. Kramer, the film, as valid illustration, just one, to prove my point. Secondly, my personal experience. My mother and my father were highly supportive, caring and dedicated parents. The concept of parenthood takes on a higher meaning with their contribution. Thirdly, this one is a partly jocose (and a clincher) argument: there is only one mother but also only one father biologically speaking! Finally, if we consider factual evidence and affective aspects, many people who are not biological parents do act as though they were every step of the way and walk the extra mile for their extended families or their “step”-offspring. “Their” fortunate relatives can proudly claim them as mothers and fathers, too. Relish then these poems celebrating paternity. Some are direct, some are nostalgic and reminiscent; others are all-encompassing and solemnly symbolic. In all of them the spirit of fatherhood flutters and perches upon our reading. Like motherhood, it is a gift, a privilege and a treasure; it is a duty we assume with love and surrender to it, a responsibility which, once we are brought to face it, makes us better human beings, completes our humanity and explains, wondrously, the cycles of life.

Listening to My Father

by John B. Lee

Sometimes as a boy from the bedroom above them I would hear my father’s voice droning through the floorboards an indecipherable sound as it is when wasp wings are cooling the hive in the heat and I would lie awake and listen to the human hum in the volume of lumber and linoleum

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

wondering why it was only he I heard before dreaming shivering the dust with an almost ethereal one-sided conversation lifting the darkness by the shadow-weight like the leaves on a limb in the wind that hovering talk in the heart of the house that resonant whisper a hushing of rain on the roof what I rush to remember and am slow to forget as it is with a thread stirred by a breath tracing the flesh in the night with a fiber that tickles the face as I thought of my mother beside him in silence her quiet responding her wordless exhale sets a feather adrift as though seeking the bird that it came from Stronger in Broken Places out there just beyond the edge of ice where the blue beauty of moving water begins to shoulder over the white line is the very place where the boy was lost to the slow shrug of a seventh wave shawling up and shivering over his small body with an undulating drag like wet chain as link by shuddering link the cruel-fingered lake became a last seduction of foam and frozen froth and a shaken jigger of shattered ice sizzling in the deep beyond all reach like embers hissing as they die and he was swept away waving as an old horizon

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

might wave in distant shores that receive the dying light of day and I wonder then are we also stronger in broken places as we are when snapped bones knit if we ask the threadbare spirit where it’s worn most thin by the big questions we are sometimes used to ask on the wall at home I have a photograph of a Cuban father standing tall beside his little son their hands both linked in loving their shadows cast dark tracings on the sand as they regard the beauty of the Caribbean Sea and what receives the light in everything lies just beyond their reach

photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Grief

by Richard Marvin Grove (Tai) Thank you Don Gutteridge for your poem “Grief”

At 90-plus, maybe for the first time ever, father trusted me, and only me, to take him to the hospital and then he begged, pleaded with me to rescue him from the confines of his cribbed bed, crisp white sheets, shining chrome, nurses fluttering by. With broken heart I had to listen to his supplications, him weeping, abandon him to his choice of self-imposed incarceration. On the phone, an eternity between us, no tender caresses could reach his furrowed brow. I had to listen for the first time to his dirgical weeping, tears washing through the phone line becoming my tears. My universe shattering. My grief, a living being, swelled in memories, floating in my swells of helplessness. “I love you Dad” were the last familial words he heard. I wept with the news of his passing ten minutes later. I still weep though now only in silence no longer carrying the burden of anger.

The Sleep

for my father

Sleep dear prince, now at the leaf-fallen years of swaying amber grass you are in preparation for the timeless slumber, at the threshold of the great sleep, the languid undulating endless seashore, the ocean of no horizons where sky and water blend with the mist

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

where consciousness fades then vanishes into the eternal. Sleep, sleep once king, of your domain, now abdicated to stacked boxes of un-shelved books, time powdered unworn shoes of a past life, rows of floor-to-wall-leaning paintings of a clearer mind now seeking, yearning for a wall of permanence.

photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

To my father: Did We Know You? by Lisa Makarchuk

we never knew your pangs or pains. did you ever feel distress or grief? what weary strains you might have had Yet never once heard your complaints. your moments of loneliness times of worry and concern you hid and did not share; moments of exhilaration moments of joy or gladness moments of great pride were what we’d see but moments of desperation your mountains of care went by unnoticed, ignored. did you feel frustration? how did you carry your sadness? where did you lay burdens down? And yet we knew wordlessly you were our paterfamilias loved at arms-length, apart remote, aloof, untouched yet fully embraced in our hearts.

WORD SMITHING

by Lisa Makarchuk

a writer’s hell is one dry spell with nothing to tell and ideas don’t gel. sweating brackish blood through cliched phrases searing hackneyed trivia annoying in their banality panning for expressive gems in a sea of literary glut expropriating baubles of phrases reflecting into handiwork that makes one tremble

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

in anticipation, assaults the senses and nurtures all with morsels of wordage delightful in insight to contemplate, to find an essence of reality. Re-edited-published in summer issue of “Verse Afire” of The Ontario Poetry Society

The Carpet

by Roberto Francisco Manzano Diaz (Translated by Miguel Olivé)

My son, watch the dust. Neighborhood crossroads where dust moves forward like a prince, surrounded by his subjects. That is your father´s dust, and your parents´ parents. Behind it shine your mother´s eyes and you smile, towards the end, like a dusted and fresh rose. Now come the wheels disintegrating the last clods and eight soles come along, ten heels, there come hundreds of skins and rubber crossing hastily on this old flour, this violent and continuous grinding of earth destined for the trip. My son, watch the dust, study this heavy cloud, observe this pride, walk from this brown trunk. Maybe you won´t see it when you wake up one day, but remember, we grew up on this vineyard, on it we set out on expeditions and on it we returned, a joyful day, in a crowd with a green star in our hands. You come at the tip of the star; but down below, remember, spreads the threshed endurance of dust, ancestry´s powerful carpet!

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Resonance

by Laurence Hutchman

1 Sometimes all I have to do is close my eyes to remember the past. The sound of the sea, the way the waves crash on the rocks, the sky turning dark, the curlews calling out to each other over the distant white caps, the moon shining over the North Sea. I can see my father standing on the turret with me. We begin the slow descent, down to the moat, out the small door where an old wise man, the castle keeper stands, holding in one hand a small red horseshoe, with the other he draws a small metal ball. “Watch this .“ The silver ball flies to the horseshoe. “That’s magic.” 2 I only have to close my eyes to hear the power of my thoughts. I remember early Sunday standing on the railway crossing with my father, waiting for the train to Belfast and feeling a warm mist steaming through the woody smell of ties, the oil glowing in blue and purple splotches mixed with the sea’s scent. The railway tracks curve toward the horizon, following the shape of hills. (The House of Shifting Time, Black Moss Press, 2019)

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Ode to the Sea/Havana Seawall

by Miriam Vera Delgado To my father…

Brave, violent, bold, uncontained, Breaks the wave against the Seawall… your beauty I revere you, sea, for being uncontrollable. Rebellious waves call out for life, A rain of waves shines against the sun; Fascinating curtain of saline rain, Rain curtain that bathes the Seawall. Wave that breaks into a thousand pearls of water, Caresses the wall, washes its sweat away; Peaceful sea that pretends calmness, Roars violently against the Seawall. Centenarian Morro, that stoically confronts you, Your waves break against its bastion; Savage dance against the cliff, Your waves die in playful leap. Infinite emotion I feel while contemplating you; All your song runs through my veins! Magic, volatile, convulsive, irreverent; Monster of pureness, arrogant and destructive! Giant of incomparable, infinite beauty; Majestic reign that hides without fear Endless mysteries, millenary treasures; All the wrecks that it swallows without modesty. Tellurian power that engenders rebelliousness; Power that proudly sings out its song!

Visit

by Wency Rosales

(To my father, who died in July, 1996) To go back through the earthly halls, Marble, or cement, of this inhabited cemetery, in the darkness of the dead, is to walk the lost steps of time, to run over the flower-filled tombs,

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

yellow roses here, transparent white gingers there, other multicolored plastic ones hardened by the sunny years you have been here. Is it to summon your spirit with a sacred voice, refill my lungs with your breath, to light up that eternal inspirational flame, those immense ashes to live, to visit our bed with furious pain. You became dust when I needed you most, and as every birthday today I am here to visit you, a shot of rum, share my sadness, engrave my destiny upon your tomb, to give you my torch so that you guide me, dear father, dear friend,

photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Farmer Daybreak

by Alina González

My farmer parents live near the river they get up very early to sip coffee day after day. My mother sweeps the yard, dogs bark, hens bicker because someone opens the gate day after day. It´s Tino today, he is in with our daily bread for breakfast. My father finishes the coffee, goes out to yoke the oxen says Out to the field, let´s till the land day after day. Farmer daybreak at my parents´ day after day.

My father´s lifetime

by Alina González Serrano (translation by Miguel Olivé)

My father has been a farmer all his life. The land has been his source of livelihood, his dear land for cultivation and poultry. In the mornings he still gets up early and heads for the field. Afternoons see him come back to sit on his favorite “taburete” * and drink his “buchito” of coffee ** looking at the plantation looking at a lifetime of work and sacrifice. (Translator´s notes) * taburete: Typical kind of stool made of wood, without arms, with leather seat and back. A very popular piece of furniture around Cuban countryside homes. A common sight is farmers leaning it against the ranch porch posts and sitting to rest, drink coffee, smoke or talk to friends ** buchito: A small sip

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Remembrance

by Don Gutteridge

For My Grandfather, In Loving Memory Did you hear the sonorous soaring of the Last Post over your country’s memorial, the bugle singing as sadly sweet as Gabriel’s music commemorating the brave in their quiet graves, or the roaring of the jets in salubrious salute? Did you, my gloried grandfather, come awake at such concatenation, recall your days doleful in that far-away war? No longer feel forsaken by the souls you fought so valiantly to save? Be assured, we will remember, though Time itself flies, until the Earth unendures and the sun dies.

My Father’s Family Tree by Anna Yin

It all started from an ink spot, my father took it as a sprouting bud. Sucking on his pipe, he drew his long narrative on a piece of paper. I can sense his smile, as leaves spread their dense fragrance: always his favourite, now highlighted by a brush — son: a high-ranking officer, daughter: a respectable scholar, (my father decorated each with details

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

like my mother’s Christmas tree), then me, the would-be poet. My father has never known poets, and, to him, “would-be” is worse than rough bark. (I can feel his pause) then, a tinted soft orb beside me: “engineer abroad” perfectly mirrored. My father ensured his final touch to free me from starving. I roll up this glowing paper, and place its warmth on my chest — Someday at harvest, out from the chrysalis of my heart, I shall start a new scroll. Previously published in “Inhaling the Silence”, Mosaic Press 2013 (Taken from “Hearthbeat”, an anthology edited by Don Gutteridge)

April Bulmer Buffalograss I imagine my father’s stone home, a heritage house built in the late 1880s, south of Galt. He tells me, “Just hose it down, it will come up pink in the sun.” He is not well, dons a pair of rubber hip waders and almost drowns in the pond. Later, we lie in the grass. He wears a white undershirt. It is dirty in places and tight. I see the imprint of moles. We slip into the cabin at the edge of the water. My childhood is lying here, broken and dirty. Stashed under the sink, in drawers, on the floor. I cough as I leave. We make our way to the back of the stone home — the old carriage house. He spins a silver dial until it opens. He leads me inside the darkness. We reach some wooden steps to a loft. There’s no banister. I lean to the left, lean for my life. But he hits the trapdoor with his head and reaches his hand into sunlight. We climb the hill where his white Buick waits like a big bird on the grass. We duck into trees. Dodge limbs and insects. I’m wearing his green rubber boots. They feel obscene in my bare feet. I walk backwards and wince. I tell him, “These trees are dead and dangerous.” He says, “Nothing’s dead here.” But we walk the highway by the river and there’s a turtle in the dirt. Its shell is cracked, and the meat is open and red like a mouth. I am weepy. My father looks towards a stretch of green

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

land. “That’s buffalograss,” he says. It’s long and fine as hair. I want to comb my fingers through it. “An endangered species.”

photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto

Family Photo

by Andreas Gripp

It hadn’t been seen in ages (if a decade can be deemed as such), there, in the frame, a mother and father ecstatic, grateful you’ve entered their world; and you’ll feel the photo in front of you, strain a tear

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

for the parents that were, for there’s but twice in your life where you’re loved so very deeply (and of which you’ll have no recollection): at the moment of passing and burial, and that magnificent morning of sun, where you’re cradled in wraps of white, in your mother’s crib of arms, your enveloping father proud, beaming, the wound of words an egg, untouched by swim of seed.

My Father Celebrates Easter In Heaven by James Deahl

Henry Vance Deahl, October 28, 1904 – June 10, 1993 More than twenty years dead my father celebrates Easter the Presbyterian way with grape juice instead of wine —his main drink anyhow being Old Grand-Dad Kentucky Bourbon— his body worn down by decades at Westinghouse Electric, Camel non-filtereds, two packs per day, and church every Sunday. An early Easter, still March, autumn’s leaves still blanketing my garden, the perfect mulch. But my father would never allow leaves to lie all winter, would never do a lick of work on a Sunday, would never miss

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

a poker game to win our annual Christmas turkey, his God a Protestant God. Chickadees at the birdseed, a sky blue as the purest resurrection, the true one to save us from our too human, too flawed lives. Sitting among the elect in church, father could foretell eternal life, the divine Providence of faith. In bright sunlight, mated robins hop among my fallen leaves.

Remember

by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias

To my 84-year-old father, for Father´s Day, June 20th, 2021 Honor thy father. Deuteronomy 5:16 It hurts to see your spirit cave in under the burden of Time, unforgiving years collecting on your shoulders like blankets of age, heavily cold, coldly heavy. It was me, long ago, on those shoulders. I remember. I was a merry jockey up there, my rein your thinning hair, or your ears barefoot with my make-believe spurs prodding your chest so you´d carry me around, so you´d take your fond-of-horses son out to the street to rival coaches. I remember. Now, I carry you. Less jollity, more pain lancing down your legs. I´m far too old, you complain, looking me in the eye as if asking for an explanation. I cringe at the inevitability of tomorrow—or yesterday, when eternity stole Mom away. I remember. Can hardly walk, you mumble. The joyous trots of past days have cantered down to an effortful walker-assisted shuffle trying to beat the distance between your bed and the nearby rocking chair that seems to be, in your mind, a million miles away. You used to bike to and from work. I remember. You used to race fishes in the beach, run athlete-like, carry Mom in your arms… Today, those memories vanish for you but not for me: I was there with you, you guided me, you prompted me, you taught me. I revive those stories, retell them to cheer you up. You say, ”Thank you,” faintly giving me a smile of gratitude I´ll always remember.

photo by Miguel Olivé Jr

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Homesick

by Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández

My old house is no more My home, my source, my childhood fulcrum Today they are memories here on my left side. My parents´ home The home where I grew up My playing with ants The hammock in the patio My marbles, my toy guns My first bicycle My playing ball in the street. I remember my late arrivals My mother smiling from her favorite rocking chair My father swamped in duties My old fears of the dark The creaking of the ceiling in the middle of the night And frogs that chose to stay hidden to avoid being kidnapped. My old house is no more It slips from my hands, from my eyes The link to my dreams, my matrix, my strength; Yet I say good-bye and pretend I know how to cope with my memories Without forgetting my home, my childhood, my folks…

Gone

by Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández (in collaboration with Miguel Olivé)

Father is gone; his mind slipped first through a warped misdeed of time. We saw him vanish, kidnapped by age chained to a bondage of oblivion, embracing nothingness, unable to recognize beloved ones or at least smile in a forceful statement of presence. His spirit wandered into the threshold of eternity fumbling for clues he could not figure out. Neither could we.

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Se ha ido

(colaboración con Miguel Olivé) (traducido por Miguel Olivé) Mi padre se ha ido; su mente cayó primero a través de una retorcida mala pasada del tiempo. Vimos como se desvanecía, raptado por la edad encadenado al vasallaje del olvido, abrazando la nada, incapaz de reconocer a sus seres queridos o al menos sonreír en una enérgica declaración de presencia. Su vitalidad vagó hasta el umbral de la eternidad buscando a tientas señales que no pudo dilucidar. Nosotros tampoco.

Moss

by Ronel González

Over the wall moss glows like an arm reaching towards the impossible where my father is ripping the veil of the wall so that nobody crosses towards the dimension of the missing. Moss is my father’s nostalgia he removes a brick to see me escape like a hero towards the things he has forgotten, among the psalms that smoke clouds in memory. Alien like the yard, at the end I touch the moist fancy of the photograph and wonder, in vain, where has gone my father, the immortal, with his silence?

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

A SHORT STORY THOU SHALT HONOR THY FATHER

by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias

We take people for granted and fail to see the beauty and meaning they naturally bring into our daily lives. It was only when my sister called me to let me know my father was very ill that I started to realize I had taken him for granted. I was working miles away and the call came in late at night so I waited for daybreak to start my journey home. That night was a harrowing experience of anguish and revelation as the hours ticked slowly away. It was then that the first flashbacks of my childhood memories visited me... My father was kind yet very strict with my misbehavior or encroachments. He never missed a single occasion to please my mother with poetry-reading sessions and serenades, followed by bowls of chocolate candies from which my sister and I always received a generous share. He was the best Daddy there is, as many kids would call theirs and would be proud to show off to their classmates... But at thirteen I sort of changed, distancing myself away from a father who was always busy but had found time anyway to take me with him on his journeys and try to teach me things. Even after these many years I have not been able to clearly figure out the reasons of my behavior. I blame it on my edgy temperament and the long seasons that I was spending away from home. All I know is that it was there, like a wall of bricks I had laid between the two of us, and it seemed to be there even when I definitely moved out to another town. That is when my sister phoned me. I took it calmly at first, almost incredulously, hoping it was not my father she was talking about. Crude reality hit me below the belt: There was my father – the best Daddy there is – hooked up to plastic tubes, attached to a lie-supporting machine, cooped up in a gloomy hospital room. The vision of vitality I had always had of my father was brutally collapsing before my eyes. The man in front of me was an old man, engulfed by a death-like aura as white as a sheet… Days and nights slipped away as we took care of him. Those many hours forged a revitalization of our relationship. The son learned to show and administer affection and attention to his father. The son saw his father’s return to life and to his heart. My father recovered with the months, after he underwent two life-risking operations. I still cherish those days at the hospital when I took him for slow-paced walks. He would confidently place his hand upon my shoulder and I would gently hold him around the waist. Never had I been so emotionally attached to my father. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, patients, would pause and smile at such a harmonious father-son relationship. Father and son embraced, conquering inches, conquering life, conquering each other. Yes, I had taken my father for granted. I had forgotten that having him there at my disposal was not everything, when I ought to have patted him on the back and told him, Hey, Dad, I love you; and I ought to have tried to get the most out of our lives together. We needed that, I needed that. I had let years go by before life struck me like lightning making me realize that living means also sharing and loving others openly, giving our all and receiving the same devotion.

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Today, I feel redeeming warmth coming from those moments when my father and I became entirely interrelated beings after I had been a blind, haughty adolescent for so long. I am grateful he is here now to share my life with him. And to honor him, even when death do us part.

A Father´s Pride: Sui Generis Artwork in The Envoy

by Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias, Assistant Editor of The Envoy

The Envoy has traditionally featured poetry, prose, art and news from well-known writers and artists but also from young talents emerging in Canada and Cuba. Previous Envoys introduced Amanda, my daughter. I, a very proud father, sent to Jorge Pérez, Editor-in-chief of The Envoy, two of her short stories and a song, dedicated to U.S. singer, Taylor Swift. My daughter seems to have a touch for writing yet today we present another side. During her long lockdown days she has watched series and read a lot. She also came up with a hobby we coined “dracing” (blending of draw and trace). Amanda places a sheet of paper on her paused laptop screen and lightly traces characters´ contours, taken from favorite series, using a 0.5 propelling pencil. Then she puts the paper on the table and alternately – and thoroughly – draws-erasesredraws with an HB pencil complementing the resulting image with her perfectionistic personal finish, mostly in terms of b/w/grey balance and eye details, which are amazing and quite expressive. She does not color her “draces.” We show here four of her works. She took the characters from the animated series “Avatar, The Last Airbender” (Aang, Katara, Zuko and Azula respectively). Some of her classmates have uploaded them to Twitter and WhatsApp, and comments have been positive. Friends are asking for copies—and I am so thrilled!

Drawings by Amanda

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

More poetry in The Envoy En mi vientre

por Diana Lucía Bruzón

Recoge todos tus besos en algún rincón de mis labios, los sosiegos de tardes en deuda, la holganza de la rima, y esa caricia a medio tiempo entre placer y costumbre que, sin retenciones, grabaste sin medida. Ni nuestro abril ni sus domingos en los que tocabas tus acordes en mis ganas con el letargo de tus dedos, esbozarán un punto medio en tus bolsillos. Busca en mi vientre la retribución de los instintos.

In my Womb

by Diana Lucía Bruzón (translated by Miguel Olivé)

Collect all your kisses somewhere in my lips, the calmness of afternoons you owe me, the idleness of rhyme, and that half caress between pleasure and habit that you over-carved without measure. Neither our April nor its Sundays when you played your tunes in my desire with the doldrums of your fingers, will draw a midpoint in your pockets. Search in my womb for the reward of the instincts.

Ya está de vuelta

por Diana Lucía Bruzón

Ya está de vuelta, ellos retozan con el olvido intentan conocer otros cuerpos y gravitan alrededor de sábanas raídas.

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

La rabia, dónde conduce, tu verdad escondida, mis versos que se hunden. ¿En qué sitio se esconden el agua y la razón? Ellos saltan, se pierden los suspiros, sombras emergiendo, palabras que cobijan burlas; intento no caer... El deseo se abraza al agua. No encuentra respuestas...

It is back

by Diana Lucía Bruzón (translated by Miguel Olivé)

It is back, they gambol with oblivion try to know other bodies and orbit around frayed sheets. Rage, where does it lead, your veiled truth, my wrecked poems. Where do water and reason hide? They leap, sighs vanish, shadows overcome, words conceal mockery; I try not to fall… Desire embraces water. It finds no answers…

Afterkiss

by Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias

An afterkiss lingers in the shadows of a room warm like embers, incomplete like dusk pilfering the sun´s bits of farewell light, fantasizing about second chances with mute pouts, yet rousing. An afterkiss tickles the nude sweaty skin, yearning sketching a billet-doux with wishful lips that wait, wait, wait in the shadows of a room.

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Lullaby

by Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias

As I had watched my beloved daughter some thirteen years ago, now I watch my granddaughter cuddle up when sleepiness is the coziest blanket. I hate to hear the clock´s beep that´ll make her dreams dangle like truncate leaves and drip oneiric dew. She tosses and turns, so I become an earthly Hypnos and quieten her pulse to a whisper by singing softly and low nudging sheep to skip over a fence onto a misty meadow of muffled sounds, words flowing gently, her mien of innocence instilling my own peace.

photo taken by Miguel Olivé

EL ARBOL Y LA LUNA.

de José Rafael Escalona Aguilera

Yo, solitario e inmóvil, esperaré cada noche por ti, para abanicar tu lumínico cabello. Nos contaremos viejas y hermosas historias, hasta que tu luz convertirme en polvo me vea, o mi polvo sea tu maquillaje, y continúes brillando. ¿Desparecer? ¡Nunca! Sólo seremos como una leyenda escrita, como otra historia sin fin. Luna, tú me ayudarás, tú, tan majestuosa, poderosa y bella cerca de mí, llenas de luz mis ramas. Yo, como peregrino solitario, testigo de tantos, he sido fiel pastor en la vida, oidor de caminantes exhaustos,

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

que junto a mí, como árbol de viejo tronco, han desahogado tantos sentimientos, y he escuchado desconsolados lamentos. Mis raíces, se han nutrido de llantos, pero he sido bendecido, he guardado secretos y confidencias preciosas. ¿Acaso lo sabes tú, hermoso astro? Hada de las penumbras, guía de los que has traído hasta mí, ¿lo harás para que no me sienta tan sólo? Mi incondicional amiga, solos no estamos, pues tenemos nuestros secretos, tal vez fantasías y… Todo a buen resguardo. Y ¡qué curioso! Sin tocarnos jamás. Sólo por tu espléndida luz ¡yo soy el elegido! y tú que en mis ramas puedes mecerte y cobijarte, si estás menguante, ¿me mecerás? Yo seré siempre tu árbol, y tu mi luna serás.

THE TREE AND THE MOON

by José Rafael Escalona Aguilera translated by Jorge Alberto

I, lonely and motionless, will wait for you every night, to fan your glistening hair. We will tell each other old and beautiful stories, until your light sees me turn to dust, or my dust embellishes you, and you continue to shine. Disappear? Never! We will only be like a written legend, like another never-ending story. Luna, you will help me, you, so majestic, powerful and lovely close to me,

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

you fill my branches with light. I, like a solitary pilgrim, a witness to many, I have been a devoted shepherd in life, a listener to exhausted walkers, who beside me, like a tree of old trunk, have unburdened so many feelings, and I have listened to grief-stricken lamentations. My roots, they have been nourished by weeping, but I have been blessed, I have kept secrets and precious confidences. Perhaps you know that, beautiful star? Fairy of the shadows, guide for the ones you have brought to me, do you do it so I don´t feel so lonely? My unconditional friend. we are not alone, because we have our mysteries, maybe fantasies and… Everything is safe. And, it is so interesting! We have never touched each other! Only because of your splendid light I am the chosen one! and you that in my branches can swing and find shelter, if you are in your last quarter, will you rock me? I will always be your tree, and you will be my moon.

Dime tú.

de Elizabeth Hernández Ordoñez

Dime tú, que rescatas mi alma, Tu nobleza se recoge en una flor, Dime tú conociendo mi candor, ¿Qué has hecho tú para mantenerme en calma? Necesito alimentar esto divino. Dime tú, que conoces cada paso, Este amor es como un goce a retazo. Dime tú, ¿qué me espera en mi destino? Dime tú, cómo puedo estar sin ti, Cada día me pareces más distante,

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Vivo todo tan solo con mirarte, Dime tú, ¿qué puedo hacer sin ti? LEOLY LESARO nació el 1ro de agosto de 1966, Natural de Holguín, Cuba. Graduada Técnica de Telecomunicaciones. Técnica en Agronomía. Profesora de Suelos y Agroquímica. Amante de la poesía. Ha participado en Concursos literarios provinciales y nacionales.

Celos de ti

de Leoly Lesaro

Espíritu libre, atada a un mundo que no es mío, presa de un pasado profundo, adolescencia frustrada, esa, esa que aún respiro. Si me dijeran pide un deseo, sería viento, agua, fuego,...ser vivo. Naturaleza impetuosa, que se debate entre insospechado destino, canciones de los 60, novelas y mundos perdidos. La arena que como lecho, cubría mi cuerpo adormecido, mis carnes cálidas reposaban, luego de un lujurioso encuentro, con aquel que se alejaba; … El furioso, azul, rugía... pues solo el observaba; me embestía con sus olas; diciéndome: ¡me excitas! Mujer ardiente, me cambiaste, por las brasas de ese, de ese que se vuelve ocaso, dejando tu cuerpo en llamas. Deja que te refresque, no me dejes con las ganas, déjame abrazar tu cuerpo, déjame sentir tu alma. Deja que te vista toda, con salada espuma blanca. Serás mi novia, mis tormentas, mi calma.

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

No me dejes por aquel, que en cada tarde se marcha, dejándote sin aliento; sin cuerpo; sin esperanzas. Calma está furia de celos; aplaca mi espuma, como una amada que escapa; sumérgete toda en lo profundo de mi alma. Ese que me deja sola, y se aleja cada tarde; hace que brille mi mundo; hace que mi cuerpo estalle; hace que cambie mi nombre; y alumbre, y alumbre cuando él se marche.

Mi Villa Blanca

de Leoly Lesaro

Hermosa dama, que entre arrecifes, su cuerpo baña; cuerpo bronceado; carne mulata, de mulata y sirena, que libre nada, que va y viene, que viene y va… El pescador, ¡Oh, el pescador!, Pescador que un día, un día, su red lanzará, red, útil atavío de pesca, que como un abrazo, como un abrazo, la secuestrará. ¡Oshun! Morena reina sagrada. Tu canto hechicero, como hechizo, mi alma, mi alma, mi alma cautiva, en tu azul morada. Llévame contigo;

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

mujer bronceada… Llévame marino, a tu hermosa barca; mezclemos ese intenso azul, con el de mi Villa Blanca.

INTOCABLE

de Leoly Lesaro

Siempre acertada y por saber no hace falta más, al menos para mí todo está dicho solo en espera, empuje con esperanza y fe, amar a lo antiguo, lo verdadero y auténtico de amar, antes de convertirnos en marionetas vacías. ¡Perdona! es mi realidad. Hay nombre. sin nombre, o tal vez sí? nombre que niego, nombre, ¿prohibido? pero no en mis sueños, en sueños, solo mío, mío, como todo. Tú eres mi dueño, te pienso despierta, te sueño dormida, te sueño despierta, te pienso dormida, te tengo. Tengo tus caricias, tus labios, tus besos, besos que devoran. Devoran tus besos, tiemblan a mi amado cuerpo. ¡Como fiera leonina vencida! delirando despierta, delirando dormida, ¿seguiré dormida? ¿aun estando despierta? sueños, lindos sueños, que tienen tu nombre,

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

que no es perfecto, pero… hombre intocable, ¡eres mi sueño!

photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto

NEW BOOKS COMING OUT! This time it is Marion Mutala´s:

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

DESPUÉS ¿CÓMO SEREMOS?

por José Rafael Escalona Aguilera

Te has preguntado, ¿Cómo seremos después? cuando todo pase, cuando ya no sea como es, o cuando ya todo sea como es. seremos más fuertes, más grandes, seremos más jóvenes y más reflexivos, seremos más, seremos nosotros, y, ¿cómo somos nosotros? seremos más felices, mucho más con menos, tendremos el cielo y el mar, y sabremos que pueden no estar. los valoraremos más. estará el amigo o ya no, pero apreciaremos más la amistad, te has preguntado ¿cómo seremos después? y, ¿cómo somos nosotros? somos únicos, somos de bien!

photo taken and edited by Jorge Alberto

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

A Look at Donna Allard in The Dream The Glory and The Strife (Poetry Anthology) (2018) Hidden Brook Press. Canada by Miguel Angel Olivé Iglesias In his excellent essay “Archibald Lampman: Poet on the Cusp of Modernism,” poet and profound connoisseur of Canadian poetry, James Deahl, stated that “… almost every Confederation Poet wrote a body of nature poetry.” His well-grounded, qualified assertion was supported by his explanation about the manifold differences between the British Isles and the nation emerging as Canada: “The most obvious differences were landscape and climate…” (Taken from Canadian Stories magazine, Volume 22, Number 129, Year 2019) His statement validates previous analyses I have made regarding the close bond Canadian poets have developed with nature, wildlife and weather conditions. In my studies of more than forty poets and their work, I cannot recall one who has not praised, described or been involved with nature. It is inherent in Canadians to view, implicate and depict in outstanding, imageryrich pieces what Canada has to offer. Poets have been inspired by its beauty, by the clear-cut seasonal cycles, and in the process of eternalizing nature they have seen themselves as either a part of it or a resulting/co-existing entity. My opinion in this respect continues to be complemented and corroborated by poets whose work comes to me every day. One of them is Donna Allard. She was published in the 2018 edition of the Canada Cuba Literary Alliance (CCLA) members´ anthology issued by Hidden Brook Press, but her work has appeared systematically on other CCLA formats, like The Ambassador and The Envoy, and many publications beyond CCLA borders. Donna Allard submitted five poems to the anthology, two of which I will address here: “in my wild place” and “in defense of heron.” Reality, all within it, is decoded by poets in words and meanings they regale us. They surprise us with “freshness and versatility in the use of expressive means and images.” (Taken from my section “A Word About” in CCLA The Envoy 093, November 2019) So does the poet I am presenting now. Her first poem, “in my wild place,” abounds in expressions that capture and provoke the reader. She starts by sharing what she is enjoying: “I see fields of wild flowers.” The poet swerves down the lines in a cascade of blending realities: “… dunes where shifting sands / unveil skeletal memories of dry kelp… / and summer dreams made of clouds // “in stained glass pools of memory I peer through / Alice’s mirror…” We find metaphors as we go, as unpredictable and luring as the world Alice – a direct allusion to the character in Lewis Carroll’s books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass – will open for us. And we read about memories that transport us to the past, to another dimension; memories that decorate the poet’s mind.

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

From this moment on, Allard pulls us into the seemingly illogical unfolding of events and experiences, based on nature details: “I become a sun illusion / a daisy in a tall grass something you’d pick / and wear in your hair…” The last stanza is still dizzy, “this wild place tingles between its tides,” an ebb-and-flow sensation to accentuate dizziness. The last two lines bear a particular sensuousness I took great pleasure in. In the middle of Alice’s world, the poet shifts from figurative allusions to a more concrete, “real” instance: “… you place the daisy there, as you once / placed your lips.” When I read “in defense of heron,” I was reminded of Marvin Orbach’s poetry book Redwing, Hidden Brook Press, 2018. In my introduction, titled “Flying High and Low beside Marvin Orbach’s Redwing,” I praised his book, which took us to “Orbach’s beloved nature where cormorants seem to “hold the answer to the great beyond.”” He centered on the redwing; Allard centers on the heron. His book came to me because I saw a connection between them, as both poets “… speak of the power of observation, of sitting still and connecting with the life that flows around us… of the simple beauty of… birds.” (Taken from Orbach’s daughter’s Foreword in Redwing, Hidden Brook Press, 2018) Allard finds shelter and forge in nature to give us this piece: “I just noticed… / the silhouette of a great blue heron / near a small lagoon…” The line that follows is metaphorical, “… desolate surface of white moon,” and a preamble to more images: “… take refuge in the winds / shattering the mirror underfoot: / the shards of glass gut the fish below / the great red reflection is undeniable / against the pure snow.” Intensely observant and bonding with the reality before her eyes, the poet is true to the banner held high by Canadian poets: nature is a standard, a sacred leitmotif. Like her ancestors, the Confederations Poets, Allard has also written original nature poems. Thank you, Donna.

Donna Allard Biography: Donna Allard is from Richibucto New Brunswick and has been a poet for over forty years. Allard is a full member of the League of Poets, the Writer’s Union of Canada, and Honorary member of the Canada Cuban Literary Alliance. She also served as the International Beat Poet Laureate for Canada 2019-2020. Donna served on the board of directors for the National Milton Acorn Festival for 8 years. Allard has been the founding editor of River Bones Press since 2004, and also served as president and the editor-in-chief for “POEMATA”, the Canadian Poetry Association’s Magazine from 2004-2012. Her collection “Cold Fire” was short-listed for the 2020 Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best Book Award.” She resides down a long dirt road and lives in a 1909 homestead where muses fill her world with flowing visual poetry. Official Website: https://canadianbeatscene.wixsite.com/donnaallardpoet

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

Titles: 1) war musket grasses 2) pigeon feed tribute to ‘uncle Milty’ 3) where poetry is more than words tribute to save Canadian poet Al Purdy’s home * Titles are from Donna’s recent publication on home available on Amazon.

war musket grasses

by Donna Allard

(Bay of Fundy NB Canada) 1st Place Award Canadian Poetry Association i see no soldier’s uniform as i walk along these shores, but fresh-blood cliffs, musket grasses, & a labyrinth of our relics; the unfolding of this puzzle, to figure out a broader picture, where rose clashed with fleur-de-lys – an arcane coat-of-arms shared by a friend. said to follow water-trails like a pirate in search of a chest, as magnet speaks closer to sand, he said many have found treasures under the sheet of their own graves. yet i favour its peaceful clay to dyed denim & origin, connecting with those who fell for their flower, who sleep in this bay of mud. Hooves flirt in Fundy sun today, safe before my watchful eyes, & I wonder if they passed on the story to their offspring, when historic man warred saddle to saddle. come walk with me, sense the memories dancing in the tide like a reverberating oratory along red cliffs & grassy shores. then let us retreat from time & fog. i fear ghosts & bell-walkers – they swear the land still smells of powder.

pigeon feed

by Donna Allard

tribute to ‘uncle Milty’ Canada’s People’s Poet Milton Acorn in the early 80s Uncle Milty & i sat together, said little while we shared a bench overlooking historic Charlottetown Harbor he consistently left tiny written scraps of paper all over – pigeon feed – i guess…his way of giving back to the earth.

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

where poetry is more than words

by Donna Allard

tribute to save Canadian poet Al Purdy’s home to tear the roots of Canadian poetry is like felling the maple tree a century of words left to rot his home & verse, trunk & branches together with his friend Acorn, our national history grew leaves flowers & fruits as heritage, from coast to coast, leagues of poets germinated, from mountain tops to glacial crest let's not allow the lumberjack to tear down trunks, or roots will rot walls of his home, words, raison d'être… Canada's national treasures near-century trees left to seed bright foliage for generations.

AVENTURA por Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández Los encuentros de los amantes y los paseos acuáticos entre cañas y juncos humedecen lo que está seco en nuestras venas. Se escucha la voz del agua y del amor nos llena los ojos con suaves lágrimas nos mueve la barca hacia un amasijo de rocas quebradas para atraparnos el rostro temeroso cuando atravesamos la extensa superficie de agua tranquila.

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

AFFAIRE by Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández Lovers´ rendezvous and water rides among sugar canes and reeds moisten the dryness in our veins. The voice of water and love is heard it wells our eyes with gentle tears it sways the boat towards a mound of shattered stones to capture our awed faces when we cross the vast surface of quiet water.

Evocation

by Marianela Rabell López

The afternoon dies in doldrums, the soul in so much love, my body in you. I plunge life in the infinite everydayness of these steps… suddenly… at the bottom of my purse, almost carelessly left there, shy, eager, the book of poems that you gave me. My heartbeat races, hands rush onwards, feelings rejoice. A butterfly flits about among words. The white jasmine cuddles up to the truest caress. From out the most tender of verses a feather comes. What angel lost on earth summoned your plans? What oyster pretends to shut your desires away? Do you really think that with everything you make me live I could forget you some day?

JUNE 2021 THE ENVOY-111 – EDITOR- Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández – joyphccla@gmail.com

MASTHEAD – Jorge Alberto Pérez Hernández our CCLA ambassador as editor – Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias our Cuban president as assistant editor – Adonay Pérez Luengo our Cuban vp as reviewing editor – Lisa Makarchuk our Canadian vp as reviewing editor – Miriam Estrella Vera Delgado our Cuban poet laureate as reviewing editor

Editor: joyph@nauta.cu joyphccla@gmail.com jorgealbertoph@infomed.sld.cu

CANADA CUBA LITERARY ALLIANCE FROM THE EDITOR: IN OUR UPCOMING ISSUES, WE WOULD LIKE SUBMISSIONS FROM EVERY CCLA MEMBER SO THAT WE ARE NURTURED BY YOU! IF YOU HAVE BOOKS COMING OUT, A POETRY EVENT, JUST LET US KNOW!