Mexican contemporary poet Natalia Toledo has been an important figure in the revitalization of the Zapotec language. She has written four books of poetry using a bilingual, Spanish and Zapotec, setting. Natalia’s poem "Gunaa" is part of her poetry book The Black Flower and Other Zapotec Poems. The poet won the Premio Nezahualcóyotl in 2004, the highest honor for indigenous-language literature in Mexico.

Gunaa

Sica rutaagua' batanaya'
ora chi guunda' ndaaya'
sacaca bi rundubi guiropa xhi' dxu',
ca belegui randa diaga xiabá'
ne guielulú': chupa xuba ziña ni bicuiidxi bi yooxho'
renda to lari yaase' ne nalase'.
Guie biete ra narini' guidxilayú:
guiruti rudii bieque ra nexhelú'.

Woman

Like my hands before praying
the desert sands smooth your breasts,
the starts are earrings in the sky
your eyes: date palms that the wind dried
wrapped in black muslin.
A stone came down from where the world is tender:
no one circles in your orbit.

Translated to English by Clare Sullivan, Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Louisville, where she teaches poetry and translation