Lullaby of the Onion

[Xipe Totec]

By Miguel Hernandez

Lines for his son, after receiving a letter
from his wife in which she said that all
she had to eat was bread and onions.

An onion is frost
shut in and poor.
Frost of your days
and of my nights.
Hunger and onion,
black ice and frost
huge and round.

My son is lying now
in the cradle of hunger.
The blood of an onion
is what he lives on.
But it is your blood,
with sugar on it like frost,
onion and hunger.

A dark woman
turned into moonlight
pours herself down thread
by thread over your cradle.
My son, laugh,
because you can swallow the moon
when you want to.

http://www1.worldbank.org/prem/poverty/povlit/povlit2p18.htm

This poem, to me, is a litmus test to the Hispanic soul.

[EFerrari]

1. Remarkable. "when you want to"

:)

In my own poetizing, one year I had an eruption of cultura that freaked out my prof because she didn't know my history. "Beth, this cycle sounds so NATIVE AMERICAN!" And she looked at me as if I might accidently be shoplifting. She was a sweetheart.

If I can lay hands on, maybe I'll post to this thread.

"when you want to"

[Xipe Totec]

2. I would like that very much!

Thank you!

Miguel Hernandez is Spanish. For Native American Poetry I look to Netzahualcoyotl:

You Write With Flowers

You write with flowers, Oh lifemaker,
with songs you give light,
with song you enshadow,
those who must live on the earth.

After, you will destroy eagles and jaguars,
we only live in your book of paintings,
here on this earth.

With black ink you will erase
what was brotherhood,
community, and nobility.

You enshadow those who must live on the earth.

Con Flores Escribes

Con flores escribes, Dador de la vida,
Con cantos das color,
Con cantos sombreas
A los que han de vivir en la tierra.
Después destruirás a águilas y tigres,
Sólo en tu libro de pinturas vivimos,
Aquí sobe la tierra.
Con tinta negra borrarás
Lo que fue la hermandad,
La comunidad, la nobleza.
Tú sombreas a los que han de vivir en la tierra.

- Rey y poeta Netzahualcóyotl (1391-1472)