from Eduardo Galeano's "Genesis"... 14) The Jungle
Eduardo Galeano (Translation by Terence Clarke)
Genesis
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The Jungle
In the middle of a dream, The Father of the Witoto Indigenous glimpsed a bright shining mist. In those vapors mosses and lichens throbbed and resonated with whistling winds, birds, and serpents.
The Father could trap the mist and keep it within with his breath. He brought it from his sleep and mixed it with earth.
He spit it out over the misty earth a number of times. From the frothy whirlwinds, the forest rose up, the trees spread their enormous crowns, and fruits and flowers appeared. Body and voice gathered themselves in the drenched earth…the cricket, the monkey, the tapir, the wild boar, the armadillo, the deer, the jaguar, and the ant-eating bear. There surged up into the air the royal eagle, the macaw, the vulture, the hummingbird, the white heron, the duck, the bat…
The wasp arrived impetuously. He left toads and people tail-less, and then grew tired.
Translation ©2023. Terence Clarke. All rights reserved.
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I am beginning to understand why you are doing these translations. Reading them in sequence gradually brings an understanding of another way of thinking in another world.