Translated by A. Z. Foreman - Tropical Stonecutting lyrics

Black men swing down their picks on the white stones. Within their picks they hold the sun entwined, And, as if pressed and wrung from them, wept drops Of patent leather spill out of their spines. Men with light voices rinsing their dark skin Rinse it with pearls of stubborn sweat and stand Cracking the savage cashbox of the wilds, Cracking the land, but never touching Man. Leaping from stones, as soon as each pick picks, A fragment of sheared sun is sparked and blown Out but resurges with returning picks Like God himself exploding in the stone. Enormous yet not great, the morning can Enter a single drop of sweat and sink. Struck sparks leap upward from the stones' own skulls And are the only thoughts the stones can think. Black men are singing as they swing their axes As if their song could soften what they break. But at these stones they delve, and delve forever, Delving into the quarry of their ache. Swinging against the innocent light stones, These Haitians toil out in the noonday rum. These blacks that bid the cracked stones bristle sparks Are nights that chip away at chunks of sun. Today in search of earthen ore, they hit upon a greater gold: its lode is day, the very day that took their human picks and studded them with star-shards, as if they stood on the summit, hacking God away.