Well, I want to read a poem in Nahuatl.
I conjugated for four years Nahuatl verse in my mind.
I went to la UNAM, in Mexico City, and I studied Nahuatl.
And I'm very happy that, when I was a little kid,
my grandmother taught me some Nahuatl.
And so this is "For Planting Corn,
an invocation that goes back to the pre-columbian times and was
recorded by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón in 1629,
and I translated into English.
I will read it in Nahuatl the first stanzas
and then in English, the whole poem.
So it's "For Planting Corn."
nomatca nehuatl nitlamacazqui tla xihualhuian nohueltiuh Tonacacihuatl
tla xihualhuian Tlalteuctli
And the poem goes on.
I believe I can only read the whole poem in Nahuatl when
I'm actually planting corn.
But I can read the whole form in English.
I myself is spirit in flesh.
Hear me, Tonacacihuatl, elder sister, lady of our flesh.
Hear me Tlalteuctli, Mother Earth.
On your open hand, I'm sitting down.
My elder sister, Tonacachuatl.
Don't shame yourself.
Don't grovel.
Don't laugh at us.
Tomorrow, or the day after, I went
to see, again, the face of my elder sister, Tonacacihuatl.
Let her stay in the ground.
I shall read--
I shall honor my elder sister, Tonacacihuatl.
The next poem is "For Storing Corn."
The poem goes, nomatca nehuatl nitlamacazqui tla xihualhuian nohueltiuh Tonacacihuatl
I, myself, a spirit in flesh.
Come forth, elder sister, lady of our flesh.
Soon, I shall place you inside my jade jar.
Hold up the four directions.
Don't shame yourself.
Don't grovel.
Don't laugh at us.
You shall be my breath.
You shall be my cure.
For me, poor orphan--
for me, Centeotl, you, my elder sister, you, Tonacacihuatl.
And one of the issues I had when I did these poems--
they came out in 1992, and then was again released
in this collection called From the Other Side of Night
published by the University of Arizona Press.
I did a poem in this collection that-- to me, it
was a poem that opened the door to a new life for me.