Richard Brought His Flute

You came.
Waves propelled you toward me.
You arrived
with a rush of a bird
freed from a ferocious cage.
The white sand is yours
now to stroll
in the direction of real love.

--Translated from the Spanish by Kathleen Weaver and Robert Baldock

Nancy Morejón, Cuban scholar and poet, is Director of Caribbean Studies at Cuba's premier cultural studies institute, Casa de las Americas. She is the author of Mutismos (1962), Amor, cíudad atribuída (1964), Richard trajo se flauta (1967), Parajes de una época (1979), Poemas (1980), Elogio de la danza (1982), Octubre imprescindible (1983), and Cuarderno de Granada (1984), in addition to critical works focusing particularly on Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén (1974) and translations of poems by Paul Eluard, Jacques Roumain and Aimé Césaire.

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