>> This is a poem that's really not a problem.
It's a little poetic prose piece that begins the novel that I'm reading that the stories are
from the novel Prieta, and it's called La Cuna, which means either the Cradle or the --
Your place, the place where you're born, your homeland, la cuna.
And, as you can see, I've been revising it on the plane
and I constantly revise that, even after publication.
There's a lot of Spanish in here and I don't think I'm going
to -- I don't have the gloss with me.
Sorry.
La cuna cuelga del techo.
A cradle hangs from the rafters.
She swings it back and forth.
Rechina. The leather thong's creak.
Carito, her little brother, stirs pink fingers on curl open, then curl up tight again.
Oye la canción chillona de las chicharras.
She listens to the shrill song of the cicadas,
to the sand flaying the walls of their cabin.
Outside, the wind whips the sand into fine mantillas
that veil her flesh and sting her eyes.
Tumbleweeds tangle around her ankles, crash into empty wash tubs.
Under the house in the crawl space, hawks, hogs grunt belly up or rooting.
Next day, ella y su mamá apartan el grano de la paja.
They separate the grain from the chaff, is that how you say it?
Granitos de maíz hit the bucket, como el ruido de sandstorms.
The clothes flap in the dry wind, sweat beads down between her legs.
Anda por el monte.
Ojos de águila on the ground watching for snakeskins.
She picks moras, mouth corners leak berry juice.
The foot trails like mazes in the sparse granjeno.
Cactus, mesquite, comal.
A covey of quail scurry off, a lizard darts under a shrub.
Out of the corner of her left eye, the streak of un correcaminos.
That's roadrunner.
Mira una liebre huyendo y una víbora de cascabel arrastrando por la tierra.
Feet burning, dust powdered, she runs barefoot from shadow to shadow.
Watches the vulture circle slowly above her.
Algo o alguien se está muriendo.
Zapopiles can smell death a hundred miles off.
She searches the sky like her papi.
Will it rain?
¿Lloverá, lloverá?
Quien sabe.
Dios dirá.
Wants the grass to be green again.
El ganado sure could use the water.
The cattle sure could use the water.
Did I translate the English into the English?
Sometimes I do that.
Culebrillas.
The sky shoots its volts of serpent lightning, the rumbling, the drum cracking.
Tear loose a hunger in her.
Rain, a grace, falls on everything.
Long drops like jewels dig craters in the sand.
She makes up a song, sings "Llovizna gris, zacate verde y yellow maíz.
Cielo azul.
The chickens con los conejos, los becerritos y las vacas."
[Inaudible] the smell of wet Earth.
Las ranitas aparecen en los charcos.
La mamá sapo sale de la tierra.
Se aparea con el sapo macho en el charco y ahí pone sus huevos.
Antes de que el charco se seca, las ranitas se convierten en sapos.
She buries her feet on the soft loose sand of the anthill.
Giant red ants scurry around her feet.
The buzz of mosquitoes brings evening, smoke from the cabin crawls into the sky.
Her brothers get home with swollen faces, red marks on arms and neck, but she walks unmarked.
It's something in her blood, she is told, or the way she smells.
But she knows it's because the ants and the mosquitoes know she will not hurt them.
Later the dogs return home smelling of skunk.
Café con leche burns her cupped hands.
Se come una tortillita calientita con picadillo.
She rests her head on the mother's lap.
The mother's fingers skim her skull, comb her hair for lice every week.
She knows her mother's fingers will never find any.
Dusk the light of hurricane lanterns, mamá, cards, cotton, arms moving up and down.
She sits on the floor, hunched over the quilt.
Her giant shadow dances on the walls as she hangs la colcha del techo.
La cuna hangs from the rafters.
Prietita swings it back and forth, rechina, the leather thong's creak.
Her baby brother stirs pink fingers unfurl, curl.
Oye el chirrido de las chicharras.
She listens to the sand whipping the walls of her cabin.
That's a difficult piece to listen to if you don't know a lot of Spanish,
and some of the more important passages are in Spanish.
So you kind of miss some of the part of the story, but it's okay.