Tuesday, June 16, 2015

The Story of Banderola the Worm and the Limo That Was Out of Gas

The Story of Banderola the Worm and the Limo That Was Out of Gas

            So this is the story of Banderola the worm, who was busy measuring a great big banana leaf when two ants dressed in black spotted him.  They were in a big hurry because they were on their way to a funeral and they said, "Hey, that worm Banderola can be our ride, he'd make a good limo."  So they followed him and they noticed that he was a seven-seater with furry, silver-colored upholstery and they said to him, "Mr. Banderola, Sir, how much would you charge to be our luxury limo?  And the worm stopped measuring the banana leaf (that he sold by the yard for making tamales) and he told them he was out of gas and his clutch needed adjusting and his horn didn't work either, that it used to go "Oww! Oww!" but today it had the whooping cough and it only went "Weeteetood! Weeteetood!" and that made him laugh and so no, no N-O!

            And the ants said yes, yes, Y-E-S.  And then they bit his foot and the worm turned around and shot a spitball at them and the ants took off running down the edge of the banana leaf and they went to the funeral which was for a dead beetle and they ate him all up and that's the end of the story.

The Story of Menchedita Copalchines's Very First Communion

The Story of Menchedita Copalchines's Very First Communion


            So, this is the story of Menchedita Copalchines, you know, the one who has the little brother and whose mother is the one, you know the one I mean, well she was going to make her first holy communion and they were making her a white dress with pink lilies and purple daisies on it and she got new shoes with pearls on them and real sapphire diamonds and silk shoe laces and a candle with a bowtie and she got a perm and a crown of white flowers to wear on her new hair-do.  And so since the communion was going to be in the morning of the next day after the day before yesterday, her parents made her go to convection.  The priest was in a box, sitting on a chair stuck to the wall (who knows how he could sit like that, "vertical" like my teacher says).  And she was really scared about sins because she didn't know how you're supposed to say your sins and if something was a sin or not, but just in case, Menchedita had hers written down on a piece of paper and so when she saw the girl wearing a shawl go out of the box, she went into the contentional all nervous her stomach was gurgling and she was cracking her knuckles and when the priest went like this in the window with his hand like he was telling the train to keep moving she knelt down quick and said, "Good afternoon, Father, is this where you go to tell your sins?"  "Yes, my child," he whispered, "you must say, 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.  I have done this, that and the other.'" And so she said, "Bless me Father, for I have sinned.  I have done this, that and the other," and the priest said no, that she should tell what her sins were and Mencheditas Copalchines said, "I confess, Father, that I have freckles." "What," he said, "you have what?"  "Oh, but it's not my fault, it's the hen's fault, she broke the jar of almond freckle cream my mother gave me."  "Oh, my goodness," said the priest to himself and was laughing inside.  "I confess, Sir," she continued, "that the other day I said Maurischevalié's name in vain, oh no, there, I just did it again!"  "But that's not a sin, my child," the priest said, trying to be a nice guy and pretending it was nothing serious.  "OK, then, if it's not a sin, I'm sorry I mentioned it," said Menchedita.  "I confess, Sir, that I dreamed about some crazy people and you know what, they pulled on my father's mustache and they stuck chewing gum in it and my mother was yelling about something they call distress and I hid under the sheets and prayed an Our Father I was so scared."  "But, my child, that's not a sin, either, dreams are just dreams!"  "Oh, well, sorry," said Menchedita. "Then I confess that my ears always have yellow goo in them."  "There, now that is bad, very bad!" the priest said, "because you should wash your ears every day with soap."  "But the yellow balls I take out of my ears are made of soap," she told him, "maybe it's because I wash too much, my mother says I should lather up good."  "Caramba," said the priest, "that's not much of a sin, either."  "Oh, I'm sorry," Menchedita said and then she said, ""Oh, no, I'm not going to be able to make my first communion because I don't have any sins!"  "What do you mean?" the priest asked her.  "And you're the ones whose fault it is, because you don't teach people the right way to make sins and oh, my dress is so pretty!" and she started to cry.   Then the priest said, "There you go, you see, now that's a sin, to be blaming adults for things.  And to be thinking a dress is so important, now that really is a sin!"  And then Menchedita said, "Thank God I finally have a sin because now I can have communion and I promise I won't wear my new dress tomorrow so I won't think it's too important and I'll save it to wear to the movies," and the priest couldn't hold it in and he let out a big laugh and seeing as he was inside the box it sounded really loud and Menchedita got scared and she ran out yelling, "Help! the priest is going crazy because I told him a sin, you better get him out of there and rub his back and settle him down!" and she went running home and that's the end of the story.

II. The Child in Me

II.  The Child in Me
Introduction
            Salarrué’s headstone in El Panteón de los Ilustres, where distinguished citizens are buried in San Salvador, is inscribed with the words: Amó a los niños. Los niños lo aman (He loved children. Children love him.). His work that most clearly embodies the truth of this epithet is Cuentos de cipotes/Kids’ Stories, 155 delightful, whimsical, silly stories narrated with a sense of humor and an affectionate respect for the creative souls of children (first edition 1961 with illustrations by his wife Zelie Lardé; second edition 1971 illustrated by his daughter Maya). Invented words, malapropisms and fractured syntax make translating these stories a unique challenge but I think I have communicated their spirit.
            The following excerpt is from Salarrué’s prologue, in which he explains kids’ stories are.
What Are "Kids' Stories"?
[. . .] they are the stories that our child is telling us, in his own way.  Not in my way, but in his.  My way of telling stories is well known to you.  I tell them somewhat differently in Stories of Clay than I do in That and More and in O'Yarkandal, but the difference is just a matter of time and place and atmosphere.  I could also tell children's stories (and perhaps someday I will, God willing).  I might tell them in the style of Anderson or Wilde, who have written the most beautiful children's stories in the world.
            But my "kids' stories" are not stories for children, they are children's stories, first of all, and then Cuscatlecan children's stories.[1]
            Do kids tell these stories to one another?  Yes.  Do they tell them they way they are told in this book?
            Kids tell these stories everywhere, but adults don't hear them for one simple reason: because they don't believe children are capable of telling a story they would be interested in, they think kids only tell stories to each other.  Adults don't want to lower their attention to this insignificant level and so children aren't heard; perhaps their efforts are doomed to fail because they know from the start that adults don't understand their stories.  But they also know that their playmates understand them even less and so, not having the sustained attention of adults, kids stories become jokes, they entertain, they make us laugh, which is fine, but this doesn't allow us to see how enchanting they really are.  With these kids' stories, we hope to focus adults' attention on the story-telling abilities of children, their ability to entertain us, lighten our spirits and make us younger.  Children's stories are not stories for children but for adults.  If adults don't listen to them, the stories are lost.
            Why don't adults listen to these stories?  Well, when adults focus their attention and get in touch with the universal, immortal child (who is always hidden in them), they listen, as I have and as others have who have been touched by these stories.  In general, adults don't listen to kids' stories because they are so silly, yet that is their greatest merit. They are not dumb stories that are offensive, but silly stories that make us laugh, which is their appeal.  So, who is going to pay attention to the thousand and one inanities that an annoying little kid is telling us?  Not many of us.  Inside every adult there is a remembered child, just as inside every child there is a hoped-for adult.  They are usually asleep. Kids' stories are the magic that inspires the adult sleeping inside the child to comfort the child within the adult.  This is the profound mystery of those silly kids' stories.
            Where did the idea for these kids' stories come from?
            One long ago afternoon, the adult, the child and I found ourselves waiting for something at a three-way intersection.  What were we waiting for?  I no longer know, maybe it was these kids' stories, because that's where they were born.  The adult was a traffic cop; he was stationed there to take down the license numbers of cars entering and leaving the city and to say flattering things to the servant girls who crossed the street there.  The child was a street kid--most notably for me at the time--the unknown kid.  There were no cars going by; no girls were passing; the street was dark and practically deserted; the man was obviously bored.  I was waiting for the bus and observing the landscape and the two other people.  The little boy talked constantly, directing his conversation to the cop.  He seemed concerned about the policeman's boredom, as if he were trying to amuse him with his silly talk.  The man was tired and directed his gaze elsewhere without listening.  The boy told his story with all the interruptions and digressions typical of a kid's story, which is a story that flies on its own wings, pokes itself in the arm and laughs at itself.  After every paragraph there is a silly joke, an innocent swear word or an incongruous whistle. 
            I listened to you, I delighted in your crazy tale and I applauded your inimitable silliness, that enchanting silliness that you and I share.  I took into my heart the delectable foolishness of kids' stories, that I now share with all the bored policemen of the world, so they can stop being so important for a moment and turn to you, listen to you with pleasure and appreciate your worthy cause!
            [. . . ]



[1] Cuscatlán is the indigenous (Nahual) name for the approximate geographic area which is now the republic of El Salvador.  Salarrué's choice of the adjective cuscatleco rather than Salvadoran, pays homage to his indigenous roots.

Friday, June 12, 2015

This Small, Precious World

Mundo nomasito/This Small, Precious World, a book of 6o poems, published in 1975, just months before his death, was Salarrué’s last gift to Cuscatlán.  He subtitled the collection “an island in the sky.” He prefaces the book, characteristically, with an explanation to his readers.  This is yesterdays’s book, he says, written today.  When I was young, walking a path, I dropped a mirror; 30 years later I’ve returned; weeds covered the path but I found the mirror.  He has returned from New York to his home in El Salvador, able to see it and appreciate it with even greater love and compassion.  These poems are a lyrical complement to his earlier Tales of Clay.

The 3 poems I have translated exemplify his spirituality, simplicity and love for Cuscatlán’s natural world.

The Mango Trees


Three tall mango trees
on the hill,
three circles of mist
standing together amid wild grasses
wet with morning dew,
heavy with fragrance,
there, where yellow flowers cluster.

            Leafy islands.
            Seated shepherds
            wrapped in clouds,
            looking south . . .

With many tender hearts they love
the quiet on the hill.
They play their mockingbird flutes
for their flocks.
Their shoulders droop,
the years weigh on their knotted
and calloused roots.

            From afar you can see
            the three on the hill . . .
            You come closer:
            first they seem of the earth,
            then they are of the sky,
            heavy in the sultry clime;
            airborne between the rain and the mist;
            rooted,
            floating . . . according to the time and weather . . .

A shadow sleeps naked
under their solitude.
In the heat of the day
you embrace the shadow
and sleep beside her.
The smell of honey wakes you.

            Your eyes mistake
            the fruit for the bird.

            You listen, but what do you hear?
            Ah, yes! . . . harps strummed by the wind
            Ah, yes! . . . the rustling of leaves;
            shouts from the distant blue,
            from the faraway valley;
            shouts that are the echoes of shouts,
            someone calling, a muted bellowing:

bulls, ranch hands, school children
playing tag, a maiden pursued,
the blowing of a horn?

Screams of screams . . . ;
ghosts of howls . . .

And up there, eternal silence
and clouds that noiselessly collide:
ghosts of shadow and water,
never the same, always silent.

Among the clouds
pass years
that themselves are echoes of clouds more subtle,
more silent . . .


The Garden


My house sits so high, so high,
so high up
that my front yard
is the sky.

I have a garden for daylight
and another at night,
where bright stars flower
on crystal stems.

In the daytime garden three flowerpots
like canoes filled with violets
float on the horizon.

There are carnations in the window boxes;
wildflowers snake along the swail;
maguey on the hillside
and in the washtub in the East,
a grand and golden sunflower.

This garden is my world! . . .


The Path
  
A path
alone:
a hollow,
a tall and smiling
eucalyptus,
dancing a waltz as it dreams
on pillows of air
beside the laughing spring.

Grassy path . . . .
Mozotes that play a circle game
around the weeds
and cling to skirts
like children,
stick to pant legs,
hang on the dog's
shaggy tail.

The shade is like a cool shower.
The milky lily grows there,
the quequeishcón
(with its ivory-tipped
carnelian tongue);
“Mary’s Heart;"
ash-gray mushrooms,
and along the fence,
lemon grass
and "St. Peter's Tears."

Lonely path,
you hear the thud of the sapodilla plum
falling on the dried mud.
A songbird's desperate call, chío,
is repeated in the distance.
Is it an echo or his twin brother?
Both sing their shrill song
and fly from post to branch,
their breasts yellow
like the zapote flower.

What time is it? . . .

It is the deeply fragrant
hour of midday,
bluest of blue
lightest of light.
The wind sets the wire fence humming;
it blows on the back of the
brush-laden hill;
the flirtatious butterfly flutters
her yellow wings;
one, two, three,
like a litany
of rose petals falling.

Faintly marked path,
traces of absence,
ribbon of illusion,
a longing that disappears
like the trail of a snake:
a deep, unmarked longing
that we followed
like wandering sleepwalkers,
touching, smelling,
hearing everything
without analyzing . . .;
looking toward infinity,
where memory is a lavender pool
and a kiss is a tranquil island.

We are beside the rock,
among dry mango seeds,
where we roll on the grass
holding our head in our hands;
where we smell father-mud,
dung and carao honey,
and tannin that bleeds from the tree trunk
and a sweet, sweet aroma
of some unknown, hidden
flower.
What is this flower, Lord?
Is it the blossom
of the bee and the hummingbird,
or the "forget-me-not,"
or the flower of life,
that opens in the depth of feeling?

Dear solitary path,

I love you like a beast of burden.