Maintenance

2.

"Por cual causa o nostalgia"

It was so we could speak longer verses

The lector would have his seat somewhere

above the workers but within hearing range

to lead them through novel chapters, newspaper

columns, poem cantos, short stories and essays

So we could speak in volumes unaccustomed

Though we know even less than they do

About building or rebuilding a city


3.

Excerpt from María Ramírez Ribes's interview with Rafael Cadenas, Conversaciones con Rafael Cadenas (Caracas: Editorial Pequeña Venecia, 1997).

"--Why does man need the city and its smoke?
--He needs the city, not the smoke. But the city has been developed using (how would I say it?) motives that are far from human. Even though it could be a completely different place. There has been a disconnection from Nature, you see? We have lost our reverence toward Nature and, of course, the cities are made by the man who has lost that connection. But if man were different the cities would be different. They would be gardens. Man today doesn't see nature within himself. Because that connection to Nature is not only found outside of man. Nor is there respect for words. They are used by demagogues, with no depth."