I hope I can do this without a stand of some kind.
"When I was born, when I was born,
my mother said, the sky was turquoise blue--
turquoise blue, como el manto de la Virgen de Guadalupe,
and on the mountaintops in the distance, there was snow.
It was November, and the air was icy cold.
My mother was in the backyard cutting
roses, huge roses, red, white, yellow, like the roses
in La Tilma de Juan Diego, and the sky
was turquoise green como el manto de la Virgen
de Guadalupe.
And on the mountaintops in the distance, there was snow.
Then a soft, warm wind began to blow.
Yes, a warm wind from the East and my mother,
said, that I fluttered in her womb like I had wings,
and that was a good sign because the East is where the sun rises
and where everything good begins.
The soft, warm wind blew over my mother,
over her hair, her face, her arms, her breasts, her legs.
She took a deep breath to smell the fragrance of the roses she
held in her hand, and she said that when she took a breath,
I took one, too.
And we both breathed in together, then I
got very still, like the roses and the trees all
around her that had dropped their leaves to the ground.
That's the way it is when birth is about to begin.
Everything is waiting for the miracle.
Later that day, my mother went into the kitchen
and made herself una taza de manzanilla, a cup of tea
to soothe herself and me in the womb.
Then my father came home from work,
and they called the doctor.
And the doctor was a Black man who had an office downtown,
and just before my mother lay down
in the same bed she slept in to give me birth,
she looked out the window, and the sky
was turquoise blue como el manto de la Virgen de Guadalupe.
And the sun was setting in the West.
The rays of the setting sun were like orange fingers
and meeting the turquoise sky.
Orange was my mother's favorite color,
and that was a good sign because the West is
where everything good begins.
Then my mother lay down in her bed.
And when the pain got hard, she reached over her head
and held on to the metal rails of her bed,
and my father had tears in his eyes.
He couldn't stand to see her pain.
My mother said, when I was born, I
gave a yelp like a newborn pup, and I was born
into the hands of a Black man.
He placed me gently at my mother's side.
And later that night, when everyone was asleep
and the house was quiet, my mother
got up very slowly with me in her arms.
She walked to the window and looked out.
The sky was black as ink, and it shone with the biggest stars.
In the center was the moon, a silver disk
shining in the sky-- a silver disk como una medalla de la
Virgen de Guadalupe.
The night was so clear.
My mother could see the mountains on the moon,
and the crater sunk into the ground.
Look, mijita, there, she said.
There is the letter of your name in the sky,
and she took her finger and traced an "S"
in the star, Stella--
Estella, yes.
And look, next to it is a letter of my name "R".
She traced it with her finger--
"R," Rosana.
See, our names are written in the heavens, mijita, and en
cielo.
And that was a good sign because heaven is where God is,
and that's where we all begin."
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]