World Literature:
Claribel Alegria
(Nicaragua)
I love to touch leaves (Poem)
More than books
Magazines
And newspapers,
More than moving lips
Repeating the books
The magazines
The disasters,
I love to touch leaves
To cover my face with leaves
And feel their freshness
See the world
Through their screened light
Through their green,
And to listen to my silence
That matures
And vibrates on my lips
And breaks down on my tongue,
And to listen to the earth
Which breathes.
And the earth is my body
And I am the body
Of the earth.
Translation: Stanley Barkan
Translation: Germain Droogenbroodt
