First Voices
—
The Rivers and The Sea
There was no water in the jungle of the Chocó Indigenous. God knew that The Ant had it, and he asked The Ant for it. She didn’t want to listen to him. God tightened The Ant’s belt, which remained finite forever, and The Ant threw up the water that she guarded in her tummy.
“Now you’ll tell me where you got it.”
The Ant took God toward a tree that was in no way strange.
Four days and four nights were the frogs and the people working, wielding axes, but the tree wouldn’t fall down at all. A vine kept the tree from touching the ground.
God ordered The Toucan Bird, “Cut it down!”
The Toucan couldn’t, and for that was condemned to eat fruit whole.
The Macaw Bird cut the vine, with his hard, sharp beak.
When The Tree of Water fell, from its trunk was born the sea and from its branches the rivers.
All the water was sweet. It was The Devil who kept throwing fistfuls of salt into it.
Translation ©2024. Terence Clarke. All rights reserved.
—
About Eduardo Galeano? click here. For a selection of Galeano’s books, click here. For my recent Substack piece that tells of Galeano, click here.
“Terence Clarke: Recovering The Arts” columns are free of charge. Subscribe to them here. Or, if you wish, you can help us financially with a paid subscription at $5.00 per month or $50.00 per year. That, too, can be done here. It’s your call.
We will not share information about your subscription with anyone.