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>> This is a poem that's really not a problem.

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It's a little poetic prose piece that begins
the novel that I'm reading that the stories are

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from the novel Prieta, and it's called La
Cuna, which means either the Cradle or the --

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Your place, the place where you're
born, your homeland, la cuna.

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And, as you can see, I've
been revising it on the plane

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and I constantly revise that,
even after publication.

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There's a lot of Spanish in
here and I don't think I'm going

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to -- I don't have the gloss with me.

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Sorry.

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La cuna cuelga del techo.

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A cradle hangs from the rafters.

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She swings it back and forth.

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Rechina. The leather thong's creak.

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Carito, her little brother, stirs pink fingers
on curl open, then curl up tight again.

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Oye la canción chillona de las chicharras.

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She listens to the shrill song of the cicadas,

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to the sand flaying the
walls of their cabin.

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Outside, the wind whips the
sand into fine mantillas

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that veil her flesh and sting her eyes.

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Tumbleweeds tangle around her
ankles, crash into empty wash tubs.

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Under the house in the crawl space,
hawks, hogs grunt belly up or rooting.

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Next day, ella y su mamá
apartan el grano de la paja.

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They separate the grain from the
chaff, is that how you say it?

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Granitos de maíz hit the bucket,
como el ruido de sandstorms.

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The clothes flap in the dry wind,
sweat beads down between her legs.

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Anda por el monte.

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Ojos de águila on the ground
watching for snakeskins.

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She picks moras, mouth corners leak berry juice.

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The foot trails like mazes
in the sparse granjeno.

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Cactus, mesquite, comal.

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A covey of quail scurry off,
a lizard darts under a shrub.

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Out of the corner of her left
eye, the streak of un correcaminos.

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That's roadrunner.

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Mira una liebre huyendo y una víbora
de cascabel arrastrando por la tierra.

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Feet burning, dust powdered, she runs
barefoot from shadow to shadow.

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Watches the vulture circle slowly above her.

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Algo o alguien se está muriendo.

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Zapopiles can smell death a hundred miles off.

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She searches the sky like her papi.

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Will it rain?

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¿Lloverá, lloverá?

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Quien sabe.

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Dios dirá.

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Wants the grass to be green again.

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El ganado sure could use the water.

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The cattle sure could use the water.

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Did I translate the English into the English?

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Sometimes I do that.

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Culebrillas.

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The sky shoots its volts of serpent
lightning, the rumbling, the drum cracking.

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Tear loose a hunger in her.

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Rain, a grace, falls on everything.

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Long drops like jewels dig craters in the sand.

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She makes up a song, sings "Llovizna
gris, zacate verde y yellow maíz.

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Cielo azul.

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The chickens con los conejos,
los becerritos y las vacas."

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[Inaudible] the smell of wet Earth.

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Las ranitas aparecen en los charcos.

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La mamá sapo sale de la tierra.

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Se aparea con el sapo macho en
el charco y ahí pone sus huevos.

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Antes de que el charco se seca,
las ranitas se convierten en sapos.

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She buries her feet on the
soft loose sand of the anthill.

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Giant red ants scurry around her feet.

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The buzz of mosquitoes brings evening,
smoke from the cabin crawls into the sky.

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Her brothers get home with swollen faces, red
marks on arms and neck, but she walks unmarked.

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It's something in her blood, she
is told, or the way she smells.

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But she knows it's because the ants and
the mosquitoes know she will not hurt them.

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Later the dogs return home smelling of skunk.

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Café con leche burns her cupped hands.

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Se come una tortillita calientita con picadillo.

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She rests her head on the mother's lap.

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The mother's fingers skim her skull,
comb her hair for lice every week.

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She knows her mother's fingers
will never find any.

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Dusk the light of hurricane lanterns, mamá,
cards, cotton, arms moving up and down.

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She sits on the floor, hunched over the quilt.

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Her giant shadow dances on the walls
as she hangs la colcha del techo.

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La cuna hangs from the rafters.

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Prietita swings it back and forth,
rechina, the leather thong's creak.

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Her baby brother stirs pink fingers unfurl, curl.

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Oye el chirrido de las chicharras.

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She listens to the sand whipping
the walls of her cabin.

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That's a difficult piece to listen to
if you don't know a lot of Spanish,

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and some of the more important
passages are in Spanish.

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So you kind of miss some of the
part of the story, but it's okay.