Girl
A girl who bathes in a river ends up falling in love with the river.
Her parents would like her to wed an automobile; better find her
another husband, get her away from that river.
“This affair with the river could make others in the universe ]
uncomfortable,” some say.
The wind and other famous personalities are upset.
They go on the radio and are seen on television.
The sun, who comes to greet the girl every morning
with a crate of manioc roots, is upset.
The cloud who tries to slip through her window to take her
far away is furious.
But the girl disappears, nobody knows to where, in the arms of her river.
Curupira*
With one foot pointing ahead and the other pointing behind, the Curupira walks through the
jungle and tends to the animals and braids the young palm trees’ hair.
Hunters offer the Curupira cigars in exchange for his secrets.
The Curupira puffs the cigars; animals, trees, and fruits
appear where his smoke forms paths.
But the men shouldn’t make off with all the animals, trees,
and fruits.
The Curupira could blow smoke so the animals, trees, and fruits disappear.
Blow all his smoke and make the paths disappear.
He could also tell the animals his secrets for hunting men.
*Curupira is a well known spirit/guardian of the forest in the Brazilian/Colombian Amazon.
Table
The table often dreams of having been an animal.
But if she had been an animal, she wouldn’t be a table.
If she had been an animal, she would have run away like the others
when the chainsaws came to take the trees that would become tables.
In the house a woman comes every night
and rubs a warm rag over the table’s haunches as if she were an animal.
With her four legs, the table could leave the house.
But she thinks about the chairs surrounding her, and an animal would not abandon her family.
What the table likes best is for the woman to tickle her
as she gathers the breadcrumbs left behind by the children.
The Wait
He who waits watches the landscape through the window
for the one who is not coming.
He who is not coming can be seen very well in the distance.
He can be seen in a solitary boat, in the sky, in the clouds.
Two trees stretch their branches to toast the day’s success.
He who waits would be happy if the sun coming into the living room
would decide to turn into the one who is coming.
He who is not coming rides by on the back of a fly without saying hello.
He who waits would like the solitary boat and the clouds to worry.
It wouldn’t be bad if the trees showed a little concern, too.
Amazónicas
2. To those who don’t really know her, Amazonia presents
herself as something she is not.
3. Belonging to the human species means not knowing.
How could we ever find out what a beach thinks? Or the
rains?
4. Indigenous people use animal and plant eyes for
knowledge.
9. Being a person is pure chance. I could have been a crag,
a cocoi heron or an uvilla tree.
10. The fact that I can love a rainbow means there are
invisible threads that unite us.
11. For what I write about hummingbirds to be true, I say
it with the mind of a cliff.
19. The river and I are the same thing, but the river is not me,
and I am not the river.
22. If you want to know what the river and fish think, ask the
tiger herons or the evening breezes.
45. To fall asleep, the heavens count the stars. The river
counts his fish.
76. No human can say whether a tree thinks with his soul or
with his body.
83. As if they know that the Earth lives within them, neither
fish nor ants care about being different.
114. Many people in the world live without knowing they
have multitudes of rivers within them.
143. Neither fish nor manioc plants care about human truths,
instants or eternities.
146. Unlike many who talk nonsense about the forests, sui
sui birds know what they are singing about.
150. We could tell the truth of Amazonia if we used
drops of water instead of words.
Translated by James Kimbrell and Rebecca Morgan
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