En los primeros tiempos
My spirit mother was brown skinned,
and Indian, pacha mama, her black eyes
held the secrets of mountains and cuy
and tobaco, her hair glistened, soft, as
she held me up and asked the earth
to cover me, to hold me in its green and brown
and to protect me from evil.
My spirit father was white skinned,
Dutch, pallid hands and watery eyes
his veins like blue threads, decorating his wrists,
and he sang to me of wood and iron and glass, and
carved me a boat, blessing me and
saying he would meet me
in the New World, a cross on my chest
and a hieroglyph on my temple.
America.
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Joel Adriance
Author's Note: pacha mama and cuy are quichwa words, pacha mama being earth mother and cuy meaning guinea pig, which has a healing and spiritual significance within traditional quichwa medicinal practices. Tobaco—the Spanish word for tobacco—is also medicinal and protective within traditional indigenous medicine in Andean South America. En los primeros tiempos can be translated as In the First Days.
This is a beautiful, subtle poem. I loved the line, "carved me a boat, blessing me."
Posted by: Jenna on February 24, 2004 12:17 AMthis is a nice, soft poem. It seems it could be elaborated on heaps in future writing, say, with our african, asian, chicano, etc brothers and sisters contributions. america has also been born out of a lot of pain and conflict between our "brown mother" and "white father" as you would say. and in the future maybe we will see the true america being born out of the east, manifested in the west.
Posted by: melanie king on March 3, 2004 09:01 AM(all content Copyright National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States, 2000-2003, do not use without permission)