During my reading of Ak’abal’s poems, I was struck by never feeling I was anywhere other than here. “Here” being in his world and mine, right now. Ak’abal’s poetry has a thrumming presence to it, a contemporary murmur that relaxes you into the moments you spend reading. I think it is his use of language that settles us into the poem, his structure which conversationally pulls us in, and his subjects that while historical, anthropomorphized, or otherwise separate from now, appear real and textured. Ak’abal declares in the introduction that he wishes to “call ourselves contemporary Mayas with pride.” In so many ways these poems echo that mission.

At multiple points in his poems, it feels as if thoughts are occurring naturally to the poem itself. It feels live and current. In In the Woodlands, enjambment of the final three lines makes for natural pauses as the writer considers each new sensation. Being wrapped in a woollen poncho, dreaming, is like falling asleep… in the woodlands. Another example is in a poem with a completely different tone but equally effective delivery 500 years. The space left before the final declaration and the original premise of the poem, there is an orality to it, and thus a presence.

It is not just that we are present in Ak’abal’s poetry, it is that time feels different as well. In our McLeod reading we learned about the different forms of Mayan cosmology and the way cycles, some long and some short, create a different reference to time. I see cycles all throughout these poems. In Corn Harvest Maize is brought from field to kernel in a cycle the begins and ends with walking. Human input that brings the ever-present food through a day. In Paradise, I see a much longer cycle taking shape, one which evokes a period before the colonial, the christian, and ends without resolving it. The maize goes from plentiful to forbidden. What is most compelling is when these poems are put in the context of their places within the collection of poems. Here, a third even broader temporal cycle appears, one that doesn’t have clear beginnings or endings. The weight of the 500 years poem hangs over this cycle, reminding us of the weight the Maya are forced to carry. Simultaneously, within this cycle, muddy feet traipse through fields of maize with reverence in an ever present now. In writing poems containing I and We and Us and declaring the “contemporary Maya,” Ak’abal brings into concert the long, persistent, sacred Maya present. The one that harvests maize, even when forbidden, the one that takes joy in a dreamy poncho, and the one that wishes to be a scrap of cloth so that perhaps one day they can fill the holes where the chill of poverty creeps in. This cycle, long and disjointed, without clear delineation or beginning, is why these poems are so compelling to me. They speak to a Mayan conception of time, as we have come to understand it. Lix Lopez began his lecture with something akin to “let us be grateful for another day.” These poems, with all their weight, do just that.

I am really sad I had to miss class this week, I loved everything I read from home. I was wondering what the brilliant minds of this class thought their “Long Cycle” might be? What historical weight do you carry, and what small cycle, daily interventions lighten the load? For me, I feel a loss of direction, a loss of utopia. It felt like people were fighting for something when I read history, and living now feels like being pulled in every direction, moving towards nothing. Then I meet people who do see the long cycle, the moral universe that bends towards justice, and I learn from them and am grateful. My daily cycle would be the ways people come into our lives to remind us of our values, even when the long view might obfuscate them.