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A Song of My Native Villagefor Chua, my native villageI sing a song of my native village When everyone is deep in sleep Under wet stars, under wild winds Finding their way home. Somewhere a man speaks in his sleep Beside a woman's streaming hair; Somewhere the smell of a mother's milk Flows into the night; Somewhere the breasts of girls of fifteen Rise from the land like shoots. And somewhere the coughs of old villagers Fall from branches like ripe fruit While grass stays awake all night in the garden. I sing a song of my native village In the light of the oil lamp Left by my ancestors, The loveliest and saddest of lamps. When I was born my mother placed it Before me that I might look and learn To be sad, to love, and to cry. I sing a song of my native village. I sing through my navel cord Which was buried there And became an earthworm Crawling under the water jar Crawling by the edge of the pond Crawling through my ancestors' graves Crawling through the paupers' graves Pushing up red earth in its path like blood. I sing a song of my native village, Bones lying in terra-cotta coffins Where mine will lie someday. In this life I am human; In the next I will be an animal. I will ask to be a little dog To defend the sadness, The jewel of my native village. |
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Issue #21, July, 2001 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.