Tr. Judah Rubin
To stop crying
For Néstor Cazi Apari Crisóstomo
They denied my grandfather a piece of land
That afternoon in Nasca
Because his Spanish seemed
A mash of cement and sand in
One of those mixers the bricklayers
Use to stop listening to their dreams
And start building the dreams of others.
He was a reddish man
In the sun his cheeks were like a pair of peaches
Like the ones my grandmother bought
To teach me to count.
I have a made-up memory of my grandmother
Like whorls in my eyes.
When I hear my father play the violin
It strikes on my soul and hurts
Like it hurts to know that once
I rocked in his arms
And he sang me a huayno
To stop crying.
Little bells of Huamanga
Perlaschallay
Play me the refrain
Perlaschallay
One to wake me
Perlascallay
And the other to retire
Perlaschallay.
His voice lashes my fore
Like those men who lashed his back.
I didn’t know any more than to cry in silence
And to ask of my feet
That they one day walk this land
To one day know the people like those who shake the poles
And unboiled, ready the water to give
Those who pick the cotton.
Newborn
I.
I saw your body
Floating at the center of this earth
Your eyes stars being born
And your hands mountains
Green and filled with fauna.
I have wanted to plant a tree
At the center of your mouth
To blanket it with gifts
And around it to dance
To weave your name into my colorful pollera
To encircle my hat with your fingers
And then to sleep amidst this celebration.
You have been more than a February carnaval
The answer to the settlement on the hill where the Tayta sleeps.
II.
The days pass
Our paths two branches that draw on away
Two rival villages
A constant struggle of lands
A tumult of wet wools
Of a ravenous Friday
That knows only to whisper your name in the fire.
I have loved you
More than the horses
That cantered about the gorge
More than a newborn
And more than my own eyes
That are today
Two springtime windows.
I have the pride of being Peruvian and I am unhappy
I raise my hymn to the sky
There where it presses on us to look to
When the cries of the señores of this condemned land
Were law.
I come, my song fatigued and my eyes enervated,
So as not to be consumed.
They aren’t rich, our mountains
The rich ones are those
From which your nails sank into this belly
And made it bleed.
We are pus
And this land, infected flesh.
We have left the Apus sleeping
Until the sun reaches our belly
Button I spin seeking myself
Among the dry wool that rests at the trees’ feet
And the alfalfa with yellow shimmering
Flowers like Inti itself.
I walk slowly like an old mule
Wrapped in multicolored fabric
With a hat that was born in a carnaval
When we smiled with our gold teeth shining
And the harp vibrating like tectonic plates.
I dreamed of singing those huaynos
Because I knew that one day I would leave this village
On foot.
I left my skin
This shell broken
Like the sky shattered
Because we have left the Apus sleeping.
The silent sandals
Were magic shoes
That fired the mud and all that life
That we loved
But which was not enough for us to eat.
Hunger moves us
It moves us toward the city of dust
Toward the desert
Toward a pain that rests in the void
Where we learned to sleep
To wake and to walk
Without knowing
What tomorrow will bring.