I'll read you all one more poem and call it a night.
Let's see.
How would we forget-- oh this goes there.
You had the other chair there, didn't you?
Oh I think I got it here.
I got to keep these things I guess.
I don't think this is working very well.
There's some sort of echoing going on in the guitar.
OK.
This is about a girl by the name of Alma
who we all danced with after a round up in Mexico.
I was working for Carlos Yslava and I
asked Carlos what had happened to the girl
by the name of Alma who we all danced with.
And we happened to be riding past a willow tree and a palm
tree.
There are hardly any palms around there
because the climate's too cold for them.
In any case, Carlos began singing and what he sang was
El sauce y la palma se mesclan con calma.
Alma de mi alma, que linda eres tu.
Alma born to Don Cruzita Alonso.
Vaquero in the Cañon de Dimas, where the swallows come nesting
by the red cliffs.
No, I wrote that.
Carlos wrote the part about--
said the part about Alma.
OK.
So anyway, I began this story poem with those first four
lines that Carlos IS saying.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Alma born to Don Cruzita Alonso.
Vaquero in the Cañon de Dimas.
Where the swallows come nesting by the red cliffs
in the springtime, Sonora, Mexico.
Where did the swallows go passing with these West winds.
Where do they nest for a while and then go.
When she was a young girl her mother didn't want her.
So took her to town to Doña Petra.
Where did the swallows come passing with these East West
winds.
Where do they nest for a while and then go.
When she was sweet 16, Doña Petra didn't want her.
So she went to live with her Uncle Peru.
She was shot through the heart by Peru's jealous wife.
And she's buried in the Canyon at El Ranchito.
Where will your hates and your jealous loves go?
Who are we here wanting to know?
Shy whirling all my tense and your young old eyes,
we carousing vaqueros chased all night till the sunlight lit
our camp on the town street.
Between our round up Jefe's house and hers.
Como un águila bajando a un lepe,
Roberto bailó con la señoritas in Agua Prieta.
Like an eagle dropping down on a dogie calf,
Roberto danced with a señorita in our prieta.
Where will the old Earth take you
dancing through this starlight, whirling us all on and on
while we she goes.
Where will the old Earth take you
dancing through this starlight, whirling us
all on and on while she goes.
West from the San Bernardino river through Gallirdo
Pass we rode in the dusk light.
Lost two steers in the nighttime.
Rode on again another day in Agua Prieta,
through dirt streets and Mexican kids
running by the sides of the road, throwing rocks at stray
steers until we came to the border corrals.
And with tequila and corridos floating
through the cantinas and the women and the songs,
we forgot the dust and the wild cattle
and the cold of the mornings and the winding trails,
and changed the town to some whirling place
we didn't remember or know.
Where will those loves and your laughing black eyes
and the winding river go.
Who are we here wanting to know.
Who are we here wanting to know?
[WHISTLING]