Let me see this and we will--
This one I will read it only in English
because it's kind of long.
This poem is called Deadly Leap.
And it really was dedicated to Roque Dalton.
Roque Dalton was a wonderful poet from El Salvador, and not
only a wonderful poet, but a man that did what he preached.
And he was assassinated by his own faction,
which was very sad.
Well, I never met Roque Dalton, but we wrote letters
to each other all the time.
And we never talked politics, and we never talked poetry.
Both of us were living in Europe at the time, the only thing
we did talk about was recipes.
[LAUGHTER]
We miss the cooking in our country, that's right.
And so one day, I meet a very nice friend, a very good friend
of his [INAUDIBLE].
But you're a wonderful dancer of samba and rumba and all that.
I said, "I wish I were."
He said, "Don't be so modest.
Roque told me that you show him how to dance the rumba."
And I never met him.
So I wrote this poem that is called Deadly Leap.
It floated to the floor, spiraling down.
I thought it was a feather, a dismembered butterfly wing.
It was only a scrap of paper fluttering through my window.
One of your notes, a cipher message I was unable to decode.
From time to time the postman delivered to me in Paris
your papers from Prague, Cuscatlan and recipes smelling
of loroco and cinnamon.
Much later in Havana, lunching in the hotel,
your messengers came to me.
Almost every day you send me butterfly
wings scribbled with signs I couldn't understand.
I stumbled into you everywhere.
I began collecting myths things that really happened to you.
I pressed them like purple petals
between the pages of a book.
The earthquake that let you slip out of prison is there.
The cuop d'etat time that save your life, the hair's breadth
adventure with your sister.
Little by little, I began to understand,
began deciphering your hieroglyphs.
You invited me to dance, a stand I accepted.
We danced in Havana in Mexico in Chalchuapa.
You led me through a labyrinth of leaves which sour
and rubbed easily.
It was always the same step.
Like an act of love, the same step.
Did I dream it?
Did you dream me?
I awoke with your death brushing my lips.
Your papers began to crumble between
my astonished fingertips.
Their characters faded, vanish.
We never danced, Roque, never looked into each other's eyes,
but still perhaps Chuang Tzu dreamt the butterfly
or was it the other way around?
I can't remember if in Mexico or in Prague while drinking beer,
you told Eraclio we had danced.
That I show you that step.
That deadly mortal leap.
[APPLAUSE]