political-economic history of Central America: (1) the political repression by the Somoza regime just before the poem was composed; (2) the economic exploitation and political corruption brought about by North American companies with holdings in Central America; (3) the insurrection led by Augusto César Sandino and Sandino's subsequent assassination; (4) and, finally, the unsuccessful Conspiracy of April, 1954, led by Adolfo Báez Bone, to bring down the Somoza government. The new, wider focus of «Zero Hour» shows an increased interest in description and narration and a preference for a documentary style, which dominates the poetry written after 1960. In contrast to the personal viewpoint and cathartic emphasis inEpigrams, documentary poetry presents a depersonalized portrayal of external, social-political reality in an effort to incite the reader to rebel against present social conditions. Whereas the political epigrams chiefly express Cardenal's personal bitterness and anger toward social conditions, «Zero Hour» takes the reader along the route that Cardenal took to arrive at his political convictions, and the reader undergoes the same reflections and emotions that led the poet to his beliefs. As a result, the poem becomes richer as felt experience and makes a stronger didactic impact.

Yet in spite of these successes, its strongly social theme, and its clear support for reflection and «wisdom» as the means by which we arrive at political conclusions, «Zero Hour» does not completely fit the criteria for prophetic poetry. Its perspective is so confined to denunciation and protest that it is not able to offer a constructive attitude, to posit a new social order. Even so, at the end of «Zero Hour,» Cardenal declares vaguely that the people of Nicaragua will be redeemed by the heroic sacrifice of Báez Bone. Although this hope is far from the certainty of conviction which characterizes the prophetic poetry, it does suggest what will lead to it.

It is not until the Psalms, written during Cardenal's stay in La Cega (Medellin, Colombia) between 1961 and 1965, that the first clear signs of prophetic expression appear. Inspired by the psalms of David, yet applied to our own times, the psalms of Cardenal are chiefly songs in praise of God and a testimony of the suffering inflicted on man by political tyranny. Cardenal communicates this anguish effectively through plaints and fervent pleas to God, through the denunciation of violations of human rights, and through graphic descriptions of heinous political atrocities. Integrated into the lament and protest we frequently hear the praise of God and, to a lesser extent, the hope for justice and retribution:

Defend me Lord from false trials!
Defend those exiled and those deported
those accused of espionage and sabotage and
condemned to forced labor
The weapons of the Lord are more terrible
than nuclear weapons!
Those who purge others will in turn be purged
But I will sing to You because You are just
I will sing to You in my psalms
                                                  in my poems(6)

In the declaration that «Those who purge others will in turn be purged,» the expression of hope for future justice appears to contain prophetic certainty. However, the force of the conviction is diminished by the context of the poem, the predominance of imploration over assertion, and there is no guidance toward a new social order. We see a similar pattern in «Hear my just cause, oh Lord,» where Cardenal integrates denunciation, plaints, an exaltation of God, and a concluding assertion of hope: «We are not allowed in their [the rich men's] Club / but You will satiate us / when the night passes … »⁷ This hope, however, is not only veiled, but it is projected vaguely into a time in the future. The suppliant's perspective is too much within the anguish of the present to proclaim with certainty a future redemption. In other psalms such as «I will sing of all Thy wonderful deeds, oh Lord» «Psalm 9» and «Thou God of vengeance» «Psalm 93,» the expression of hope has the strength and the ringing confidence of full-fledged prophetic statement. This is particularly evident in «I will sing of all Thy wonderful deeds, oh Lord,» which also presents as an accomplished fact the political redemption Cardenal desires:

I will sing of all Thy wonderful deeds, oh Lord
I will sing You psalms
For their Armed Forces were defeated
The powerful have fallen from power(8)

Although this psalm lacks the constructive ideals of prophetic poetry, it can nevertheless be pinpointed as the genesis of Cardenal's attitude of certainty.

The psalm «Their shares shall wither as the grass» is as close as Cardenal comes in this book to meeting both criteria for prophetic poetry. In this psalm, we not only find proclamations of certainty similar to those of the psalms already discussed, but we also discern a sustained focus on the future disappearance of our present society. Whereas in other psalms affliction and denunciation are the chief interests of the poet, in this psalm all such interests are subordinated to the focus on the future. At the beginning of the psalm we are offered a series of ethical imperatives: «Fret not that they make many millions / … Neither be envious of millionaires or film-stars.»⁹ These, we soon find, are used only in the service of prophecy: «for soon their names will not appear in any newspaper / nor will even the learned know their names / For they shall soon be cut down like the grass of the fields» (p. 83).¹⁰ Even when the psalm suspends its prophetic perspective to portray the calamities of the present, it does so only to insist on the transitoriness of these calamities:

They enlarge the concentration camps
invent new kinds of torture
new methods of ‘investigation’
They rest not in the night for making plans
plans how to overcome us
                                                            and exploit us more
but the Lord laughs at them
knowing they will shortly fall from power
The arms they manufacture will turn against them
Their political systems will be swept from the face of the earth
their political parties will no longer exist
And their technicians' plans will come to naught.(11)

(pp. 83–84)

Cries of anguish and denunciation and even the vague hope of redemption are displaced by the absolute certainty of a future in which commercialism, economic inequality, political persecution, and all maleficent applications of technology for warfare will have disappeared. The poem culminates in a clear vision of a time in the future which the poet represents as having already taken place. In this vision, «Leadership will pass unto the meek / (the ‘pacifists’)» (p. 83)¹² who have replaced the dictator:

I have seen the dictator's portrait everywhere
                                                            —it spread like a flourishing tree—
and then I passed that way again
                                                            it was not there
I sought it and I found it not
I sought it and I found no portrait
nor might his name be named.(13)

(p. 84)

Even the very name of the dictator will have been banished from human memory. Thus we see that although this psalm satisfies the criterion of certainty, it focuses more on the disappearance of the old society than on guiding toward the new with specific ideals.

If the poems in the Psalms show that the genesis and first steps in the development of Cardenal's prophetic poetry result from an absolute confidence in God, Homage to the American Indians (1959–1970) shows the other source of this development: the historical lesson offered by an examination of Amerindian cultures. In Homage, the considerable knowledge acquired through the study of historical and poetic texts, both pre- and post-Columbian, orient Cardenal toward a prophetic statement different from that of the Psalms. The Psalms and Homage both proclaim the coming of social justice. But in the Psalms, this strong conviction is stated negatively, for the most part,—as social-political retribution and as the destruction of a nefarious system of values. In Homage, while not entirely abandoning the apocalyptical tendency of the Psalms, Cardenal largely exalts the values of the American Indians in order to guide us toward a new society and system of values which he is confident will come about. He thereby transcends the apocalyptical mode of the Psalms. A second difference between the Psalms and Homage shows up in the only poem of Homage that is apocalyptical—«Mayapán.» The certainty of the end of social injustice in the Psalms is completely anchored in a faith in God, whereas in «Mayapán» this certainty begins to be justified rationally through historical analysis.

«Mayapán» apart, Homage comes to be the indispensable complement to the Psalms, for it presents guidance in a constructive sense, basing it on the rational wisdom of history. Homage has acquired this constructive sense because Cardenal has discovered in the Amerindian past a form of individual being and communal living close to that of the future society he envisions. That is, civilization is destined to a future that has passed once already, a «future Arcadia [that] is not an empty dream … it already took place and new signs announce it in the midst of the hecatomb.»¹⁴ What were the characteristics of the indigenous cultures that so strongly attracted the Nicaraguan poet and led him to use them as the model of his ideal future society? Among the several answers that Homage gives, the most prominent are the supremacy of spiritual values, including aesthetics, over all material interests and the strong sense of social and economic equity. Under these conditions man is well-integrated into the society and into the universe.

The importance given to spiritual values, especially religion, rather than pragmatic ones is clearly stated in «Lost Cities,» which examines the culture of a Mayan metropolis which is a thousand years older than Tikal:

Their cities were of temples and they lived in the fields,
among milpas and palm and papaya trees.
The arch of their temples was a copy of their huts.
The roads were only for processions.
Religion was the only tie among them,
but it was a religion freely taken …

(p. 11)¹⁵

They did not work metals. Their tools were of stone,
and technologically they remained in the Stone Age.

(p. 12)

Time was sacred. The days were gods
Past and future suffused their songs.

(p. 12)

Another instance of the Amerindians' appreciation of the spiritual aspects of existence emerges in their esthetic interests. These interests are seen as manifestations of the Creator and they consist of the beauty of Amerindian songs, poetry, painting, and ritual. As King Netzahualcóyotl states in «Mexican Songs II,»

You are in these songs Giver of Life.
I give my flowers and songs to my people.

(p. 19)¹⁶

We have come to bring joy to Anahuac with paintings
The flowers of painting

(p. 20)

Moreover, given the Amerindian's strong esthetic sense, it is not surprising that an esthetic appreciation takes precedence over a commercial exploitation of the natural world:

… I, Netzahualcóyotl

(p. 18)¹⁷

Picker of cacao flowers …
Not Cacaos (the COINS
for buying and selling in markets, and not for drinking)
                    but the flower.

(p. 18)

Thus, in the Amerindian world Cardenal has discovered a mode of existence, both private and social, which harmoniously integrates man into his surroundings. In this world, song or aesthetics, prayer or religion, and act or ethics provide the basis for a conduct that shows a respect for nature, fellow human beings, and community. It is community that chiefly attracts the poet. As José Miguel Oviedo has well observed, Cardenal perceives in the Amerindian community «an historical lesson to be examined and reviewed: many of those primitive peoples found the reason for living communally which modern civilization has forgotten.»¹⁸ Cardenal sees that, in the culture of the Amerindians, communal living partakes of both spiritual and pragmatic values: on the one hand, religion, aesthetics, and ethics, on the other, economics; both are amply reflected in «The Economy of Tahuantinsuyu.» Almost in the manner of a catalogue, Cardenal enumerates in the poem the spiritual and pragmatic virtues of the Incas' communal system. (At the same time, he juxtaposes to these virtues the economic practices of our contemporary world, producing an effect of powerful contrast). For example, in linking ethics and economics, Cardenal shows how the absence of money in the Amerindian world eliminates robbery and prostitution. In addition, neither is there «Administrative Graft nor embezzlement … No Indian was ever sold / and there was chicha for everybody» («The Economy of Tahuantinsuyu,» p. 36).¹⁹ What is evident here is an equitable system of economics without poverty or hunger: «The function of the State / was to feed the people» (p. 38).²⁰ In this society even blind people are able to be productive and are not exploited. Another law of this society is that «The land belonged to whoever worked it / and not to the landlord» (p. 38).²¹ That is, this society is nothing less than an «Agrarian communism / THE SOCIALIST EMPIRE OF THE INCAS» (p. 40)²² with laws for the protection of even domestic animals.

Despite the utopian idealism of the poem, Cardenal shows himself clearly aware of the defects of this ancient society: «And not everything was perfect at the ‘Inca Paradise’» (p. 40).²³ But he nevertheless leaves no doubt that the virtues of the society more than compensate for its defects:

But their myths
                                        were not those of the Economists!
Religious truth
                                        and political truth
were one and the same to the people
Economics with religion

(p. 40)²⁴

In this last line we again see that integrated world view which the Amerindians held, a view in which religious truth was complemented by economic practices. That such a world would exert so strong an attraction for Cardenal («the moneyless society we dream of» [p. 37]²⁵ is easily understood if we remember that for him true religion does not consist of empty rituals. True religion must instead contain a pragmatic social concern and work toward the establishment of social, political, and economic justice: «… true religion … comes to the aid of widows and orphans …» (p. 327).²⁶

If the Amerindian past offers Cardenal a reality more akin to his own values, it also instills in him, by the fact of its having been achieved, a greater degree of confidence in the reestablishment of true communal living. Nothing, however, serves to fortify Cardenal's position as much as the remarkable parallels between the decline of one Amerindian community, Mayapán, and our troubled present. In these parallels, Cardenal finds an historical lesson that, in effect, explains why our civilization is declining and what will have to take place before a new, enlightened one can emerge. Specifically, Cardenal finds in the ancient city of Mayapán that «fissure in the aesthetic and moral unity of the Mayan world.»²⁷

An example of the opposite of the virtuous ancient Mayan cultures, Mayapán is characterized by a technological development and a vast military power through which it extends its totalitarian rule to other cities in Yucatán. The supremacy of these two interests over all others, far from contributing to Mayapán's advancement as a civilization, results in an appalling cultural poverty and an abandonment of transcendent values in favor of commercialism:

Monochrome pottery, monotonous
as at the beginning, as the Olmecs
or: as filling station billboards on a Texas highway

(p. 27)²⁸

Mediocre sculptures in the temples
censers of bad, porous clay; and made in molds;
gods by the tens, mass production, assembly line,
                                        Henry Ford

(p. 28)

Yet, in spite of its commercial and military development, «MAYAPÁN THE WALLED CITY FELL» («Mayapán,» p. 29).²⁹ An internal revolt against the long totalitarian and misguided rule of the Cocom dynasty initiates Mayapán's rapid decline, «like someone coming down a pyramid» (p. 30),³⁰ and Cardenal feels, the parallels being so evident, that our capitalist civilization is also doomed to fall. In discovering a mirror of our present declining civilization in the past, Cardenal arrives at the conclusion that «history and prophecy are the same» («Mayapán,» p. 32).³¹ Cardenal here means simply that we can learn about the future through a study of the past. What he later realizes, as the interview with Christ makes clear, is that «history is prophecy» only insofar as it enables us to find specific directives in «the construction of a new society.»

The prophetic expression of Homage reveals a double evolution: on the one hand, the certainty evident in the Psalms is strengthened in Homage especially in «Mayapán» where the proclamation of the end of injustice has roots not only in faith but in history; on the other hand Homage initiates constructive guidance by exalting the communal values of the past and by offering them as models for the future. These communal values, Cardenal is convinced, will reemerge. However, he does not base his confidence in their return on history, but vaguely, on faith.³² The lack of historical justification for Cardenal's confidence is clearly a limitation. It results from the poet's relatively short historical reach and from the absence of any indication in the history after Mayapán of a restoration of communal values. In fact, Mayapán represents the beginning of a process of decline that Cardenal feels extends to the present.

It is not until the poetry written after Homage, such as «Nicaraguan Canto» (1970–1972) and «Oracle Over Managua» (1972–1973), that Cardenal's content achieves, according to his own definition, its purest prophetic character. Evidencing a remarkable development in their poetic quality (e.g., control of tone, ease of manner, use of jarring details, creation of sustained tension), both poems expand their historical perspective back to the most remote pre-historical times. Concomitantly, they express an attitude of absolute certainty and uplift toward the institution of a new social order. Unlike the certainty of Homage, «Mayapán» apart, the certainty in these poems is justified primarily through the «wisdom» of historical knowledge, not solely on faith in God.

The earliest manifestation of the expanded historical perspective shows itself in «Nicaraguan Canto,» a poem of strong, sudden contrasts between the calm beauty of the Nicaraguan landscape and the violent political corruption of the country. Cardenal opens the poem with a lyrical description of fauna and flora. He then goes on to present a well-documented description of those North American companies who have exploited the Nicaraguans. His condemnation is made all the more shocking by the contrasting lyrical description that precedes it. Cardenal then abruptly introduces the idea of an evolutionary process which encompasses both nature and economics:

I said iguanas lay their eggs … It is the process.
                                        They
(or else the frogs) in the silence of the carboniferous
                                        age
                                        made the first sound
                    sang the first love song here on earth
                    sang the first love song here beneath the moon
                                        it is the process.
The process started with the stars.
                    New relations of production: that too
is part of the process. Oppression. After oppression,
                                        liberation.(33)

According to this process, pre-history and history portray the same evolution toward the liberation of man, toward the creation of a «New Man,» utterly free of economic exploitation: «From / the first bubble of gas, to the iguana's egg, to the New Man» (p. 20).³⁴ In this process is also revolutionary action, like that of the Sandinista Movement:

Sandino was proud he had been born ‘from the womb of the
                    oppressed’
                                        (that of an Indian girl from Niquinohomo).
From the womb of the oppressed the Revolution will be born.
It is the process.

(p. 20)³⁵

Revolution and evolution are thus drawn together as two aspects of the same process whose only difference finally is in the velocity of their respective changes.

A more fully developed but similar idea of a world in constant evolution toward the liberation of man is manifested in «Oracle over Managua,» a poem conceived as a meditation on the disastrous consequences of the earthquake that shook the city in 1972. It is significant that Cardenal is able to write a «meditation,» for it suggests the calm assurance of his prophetic stance. In one of his most complex and ambitious works, Cardenal effectively establishes from the beginning the notion of a millenial process in which our present is but a single insignificant historical stage. Beginning with pre-history, the speaker examines for us various layers of subsoil until he arrives at the most recent one; it is covered with «bits of Coca-Cola bottles and Goodyear tires and chamber pots,»³⁶ all indicative of the degeneration of values and the meaninglessness of present-day consumerism. Once the evolutionary perspective has been established the poem denounces with minute, graphic detail the economic and political repressive measures of Somoza's regime. As an antithesis to repression, and integrated into the evolutionary process, Cardenal exalts the revolutionary fight for liberation. The evolutionary process itself, conceived by Cardenal as part of a dialectic, moves toward «union,» whether in the physical world or at the level of human consciousness:

All life unites
                                        unites and does not divide
                    (it integrates)

(p. 46)³⁷

Every living substance: fusion with what is different
                    unification with the opposite.
Although death is as ancient as the cosmos
                    the antiprotons fight the protons
                    the antineutrons fight the neutrons
                    antimatter fights matter.
And now with bazookas they try
                    to stop history.
‘Verily, verily I say unto you
                    the Revolution is in the midst of you.’
It's suicidal not to try it, you used to tell your friends
in the India Coffee House.
In the midst of the general tendency to disintegration
                    there is an inverse tendency
to union. To love.

(p. 47)

The integrating tendency of the evolutionary process will finally result in the «New Man,» one with a fully collective consciousness and an interest in universal love. At the same time this development implies that the present social structures will have to change:

A new man a          new time          a new earth
                                        The heart of man and not the structures?
To change consciousness without transforming the world?

(p. 55)³⁸

In order for the social structures to change, revolution is necessary. Cardenal justifies revolution as a means of achieving a new society:

A new society
                                        a new heaven and a new earth
also the production of free time
and with the development of production capacity
the development of the inner life
                                        a new man and a new song.

(p. 48)³⁹

It is important to point out that this future society, conceived in patently Marxist terms, is also for Cardenal the equivalent of the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth; man, now free from economic exploitation, can develop fully his spirituality. Thus we see that Cardenal fuses the Christian hope of establishing the Kingdom of God on earth and the objective of the Marxist dialectical process in a harmonic synthesis.

According to Cardenal, class structure and capitalism represent a retrogression, a movement away from the communal society of the past. Given this view, it might seem appropriate to ask how the poet can call class structure and capitalism progress. The question does not escape Cardenal; he asks, «the division of classes a product of progress» (p. 49)?⁴⁰ The answer he gives is to be found in his conception of a progress whose path is interrupted at given moments but which at length resumes its course. These interruptions are the result of certain by-products of history such as slavery and militarism which have retarded but not halted the process.

The vast historical perspective evident in «Nicaraguan Canto» and «Oracle over Managua» provides Cardenal with the distance necessary to evaluate the present with objectivity and to present it as transitory. Thus the social and economic structures of capitalism, limited to a relatively insignificant period of time, are seen as ephemeral:

If the history of humanity were 24 hours
                                                                      let's say
private property, classes, division
into rich and poor: these would be the last 10 minutes.
          INJUSTICE / the last 10 minutes.

(p. 50)⁴¹

Showing an absolute certainty in his conviction, Cardenal not only prophesies the extinction of capitalism but he transcends all apocalyptical predictions. Cardenal's greater insight into the past has allowed him to discern the very same millenial process in pre-history and history that, he feels, of necessity will establish a new and equitable social order. Consequently, at the height of his prophetic expression, he is able to raise his eyes, look beyond the present misery and destruction of his people, and point exultantly to an imminent «reconstruction»:

          The Kingdom of God is at hand
the City of Communion, brothers.
          Only the dead are reborn.
Once more there are more footprints; the pilgrimage has not ended.
At midnight a poor woman gave birth to a baby boy in an open field
          and that is hope.
God has said: ‘Behold I make all things new’
          and that is reconstruction.

(p. 68)⁴²

Notes

1. «The Poetry of Useful Prophecy,» Commonweal, 100:8 (26 April, 1974), 191.

2. Christ, p. 191.

3. Christ, p. 191.

4. Christ, p. 191.

5. Cardenal's comments regarding the differences between Epigrams and the poetry which followed it support my own observations on the character of his earliest collection: «The epigrams are lyric because they come from my youthful period of lyricism, but my other poetry is not lyric» (Christ, p. 191).

6. My own translation of «Librame Señor,» which is in Salmos (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Carlos Lohlé, 1969), p. 15. Because so much is lost in any translation of Cardenal's poetry, it would be less than just not to include the Spanish version of the poems. Consequently, beginning with this passage, I will include in the Notes the original version of all translations given in the text. All citations of the Psalms in their original Spanish are from the Lohlé edition:

   Defiéndeme Señor del proceso falso!
   Defiende a los exilados y los deportados
   los acusados de espionaje y de sabotaje
   condenados a trabajos forzados

   Las armas del Señor son más terribles
   que las armas nucleares!
   Los que purgan a otros serán a su vez purgados
   Pero yo te cantaré a ti porque eres justo
   te cantaré en mis salmos
                                                                                                       en mis poemas

7. My own translation; from «Oye Señor mi causa justa» (Lohlé, p. 26): «Nosotros no tenemos entrada a su Club / pero tú nos saciarás / cuando pase la noche …»

8. My own translation; from «Cantaré Señor tus maravillas» (Lohlé, p. 17):

   Cantaré Señor tus maravillas
                                                                                                                 Te cantaré salmos
   Porque fueron derrotadas sus Fuerzas Armadas
                                           Los poderosos han caido del poder

9. Ernesto Cardenal: Marilyn Monroe and Other Poems, trans. Robert Pring-Mill (London: Search Press Ltd., 1975), pp. 83–84. All subsequent references to this psalm in translation are from this edition. In Spanish, the lines read: «No te impacientes si los ves hacer muchos millones / … No envidies a los millonarios ni a las estrellas de cine» (Lohlé, p. 39).

10. « … porque pronto sus nombres no estarán en ningún diario / y ni los eruditos conocerán sus nombres / Porque pronto serán segados como el heno de los campos» (Lohlé, p. 39).

11. Están agrandando los campos de concentración
    están inventando nuevas torturas
    nuevos sistemas de «investigación»
    En la noche no duermen haciendo planes
    Planeando cómo aplastarnos más
                                                                                                                  cómo explotarnos más
    pero el Señor se rie de ellos
    porque ve que pronto caerán del poder
    Las armas que ellos fabrican se volverán contra ellos
    Sus sistemas politicos serán borrados de la tierra
    y ya no existirán sus partidos politicos
    De nada valdrán los planos de sus técnicos

    (Lohlé, pp. 39–40)

12. «Los hombres mansos serán los nuevos lideres / (los ‘pacifistas’)» (Lohlé, p. 39).

13. Yo vi el retrato del dictador en todas partes
                                                      —Se extendia como un árbol vigoroso—
    y volvi a pasar
                                                                y ya no estaba
    Lo busqué y no le hallé
    Lo busqué y ya no habia ningún retrato
    y su nombre no se podia pronunciar

    (Lohlé, p. 40)

14. This is my own translation of a statement from José Miguel Oviedo, «Ernesto Cardenal o el descubrimiento del Nuevo Mundo,» in Ernesto Cardenal: Homenaje a los indios americanos, ed. José Miguel Oviedo (Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria, S.A., 1970), pp. 14–15.

15. Homage to the American Indians, trans. Monique and Carlos Altschul (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973). All subsequent references to this and other poems in Homage in translation are from this edition. All citations from Homage in the original Spanish are from Homenaje a los indios americanos (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Carlos Lohlé, 1972):

    Sus ciudades eran de templos, y vivian en los campos,
    entre milpas y palmeras y papayas.
    El arco de sus templos fue una copia de sus chozas.
    Las carreteras eran sólo para las procesiones.
    La religión era el único lazo de unión entre ellos,
    pero era una religión aceptada libremente
    y que no era una opresión ni una carga para ellos.

    (Lohlé, p. 16)

    No tuvieron metalurgia. Sus herramientas eran de piedra,
    y tecnológicamente permanecieron en la edad de piedra.

    (Lohlé, p. 17)

    El tiempo era sagrado. Los dias eran dioses
    Pasado y futuro están confundidos en sus cantos.

    (Lohlé, p. 17)

16. Tú estás en estos cantos Dador de la Vida.
    Distribuyo mis flores y mis cantos a mi pueblo.

    (Lohlé, p. 23)

    Hemos venido a alegrar Anáhuac con pinturas
    Las flores de la pintura

    (Lohlé, p. 23)

17.                                                                                                     yo, Netzahualcóyotl

    (Lohlé, p. 22)

    Cortador de las flores de cacao …
    No Cacaos (las MONEDAS
    para comprar y vender en los mercados, y no beberlas)
                                            sino la flor.

    (Lohlé, p. 22)

18. «Ernesto Cardenal o el descubrimiento del Nuevo Mundo,» p. 16. Again, this is my translation.

19. «Corrupción Administrativa ni desfalcos … Nunca se vendió ningún indio / Y hubo chicha para todos» (Lohlé, p. 39).

20. «La función del Estado / era dar de comer al pueblo» (Lohlé, p. 41).

21. «La tierra del que la trabajaba / y no del latifundista» (Lohlé, p. 41).

22. «Un comunismo agrario / ‘EL IMPERIO SOCIALISTA DE LOS INCA’» (Lohlé, p. 42).

23. «Y no todo fue perfecto en el ‘Paraiso Incaico’» (Lohlé, p. 42).

24. Pero sus mitos
                                                                no de economistas!
    La verdad religiosa
                                                                                    y la verdad politica
    eran para el pueblo una misma verdad
    Una economia con religión

    (Lohlé, p. 43)

25. «la sociedad sin dinero que soñamos» (Lohlé, p. 40).

26. Ernesto Cardenal, In Cuba (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1974), p. 327.

27. Oviedo, «Ernesto Cardenal o el descubrimiento del Nuevo Mundo,» p. 16. Again, this is my translation.

28. Cerámica monocroma, monótona
    como al principio, como olmecas
    o: como anuncios de gasolineras en una carretera de Texas

    (Lohlé, p. 30)

    Mediocres las esculturas de los templos
    incensarios de mal barro, poroso; y hechos en moldes;
    dioses en serie, mass production, assembly line, Henry Ford.

    (Lohlé, p. 31).

29. «CAYÓ MAYAPÁN LA QUE TIENE MURALLAS» (Lohlé, p. 32).

30. «como quien baja de una pirámide» (Lohlé, p. 33).

31. «historia y profecia son lo mismo» (Lohlé, p. 35).

32. Because Homage presents a cyclical view of history, the reader might at first think that Cardenal bases his idea of the reemergence of communal values on this view. But, for two reasons, this is not so. On the one hand, the cyclical view is that of the persona, the Chilam, and not Cardenal. On the other, as a Marxist, Cardenal could not hold a cyclical view of history.

33. Ernesto Cardenal: Zero Hour and Other Documentary Poems, ed. Donald D. Walsh (New York: New Directions, 1980), p. 20. All subsequent references in translation to «Nicaraguan Canto» are from this edition. All citations from the original Spanish are from «Canto nacional» in Ernesto Cardenal: Poesia escogida (Barcelona: Barral Editores, S.A., 1975):

    Decia que desovan las iguanas … Es el proceso. Ellas
    (o las ranas) en el silencioso carbonifero
                                            emitieron el primer sonido
                                            la primera canción de amor sobre la tierra
                                            la primera canción de amor bajo la luna
                                                                                                        es el proceso
                                                      El proceso viene desde los astros
                                            Nuevas relaciones de producción: eso
    también es el proceso. Opresión. Tras la opresión, la liberación.

    (pp. 178–79)

34. « … Desde / el primer huevo de gas, al huevo de iguana, al hombre nuevo» (Barral, «Canto nacional,» p. 179).

35. Sandino se gloriaba de haber nacido del ‘vientre de los oprimidos’
                                                      (el de una indita de Niquinohomo)
    Del vientre de los oprimidos nacerá la Revolución.
    Es el proceso.

    (Barral, «Canto nacional,» p. 179)

36. Ernesto Cardenal: Zero Hour and Other Documentary Poems, p. 43. All subsequent references in translation to «Oracle Over Managua» are from this edition. All citations from the original Spanish are from «Oráculo sobre Managua» in Ernesto Cardenal: Poesia escogida: «trozos de Coca Colas y llantas Goodyear y bacinillas» (p. 208).

37. Toda vida une
                                                                une y no divide
                                  (integra)

    (Barral, «Oráculo,» p. 213)

    Toda sustancia viva: fusión con lo diferente
                                                                                              unificación con lo opuesto.
    Aunque la muerte es tan antigua como el cosmos
                                            los antiprotones combaten a los protones
                                            los antineutrones combaten a los neutrones
                                            la antimateria combate a la materia
    Y ahora pretenden con bazukas
                                                                                    detener la historia
    ‘En verdad, en verdad os digo
                                            la revolución está en medio de vosotros’
    Es suicidio no hacerla decias a los amigos
    en la Cafeteria La India.
    En medio de la tendencia general a la desintegración
                                            hay una tendencia inversa
    a la unión. Al amor.

    (Barral, «Oráculo,» pp. 213–14)

38. Un hombre nuevo          un tiempo nuevo          una nueva tierra
                                                      ¿El corazón del hombre y no las estructuras?
    ¿Cambiar la conciencia sin transformar el mundo?

    (Barral, «Oráculo,» p. 228)

39. Una nueva sociedad
                                                                un nuevo cielo y una nueva tierra
    también la producción de tiempo libre
    y con el desarrollo de la capacidad de producción
    el desarrollo de la vida interior
                                                                un hombre nuevo y un nuevo canto

    (Barral, «Oráculo,» p. 216)

40. «¿La división de clases producto del progreso?»

    (Barral, «Oráculo,» p. 218)

41. Si la historia de la humanidad fuera 24 horas digamos
    la propiedad privada, las clases, divisón
    de ricos y pobres: serian los últimos 10 minutos.
                        LA INJUSTICIA / los últimos 10 minutos.

    (Barral, «Oráculo,» p. 220)

42.                     El Reino de Dios está cerca
    la Ciudad de la Comunión compañeros
                        Sólo los muertos resucitan
    Otra vez hay otras huellas: no ha terminado la peregrinación

    A medianoche una pobre dio a luz un niño sin techo
                        y ésa es la esperanza
    Dios ha dicho: ‘He aqui que hago nuevas todas las cosas’
                        y ésa es la reconstrucción.

    (Barral, «Oráculo,» p. 250)