First Voices
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Snow
“I want you to fly!” said the master of the house, and the house took off flying. It went into the air in darkness, whistling as it went, until the master of the house gave an order:
“I want you to stop here!”
And the house came to a halt, suspended in the middle of the night and in the snow falling all around.
There was no sperm whale oil to light the lamps, so the master of the house took up a handful of fresh snow, and the snow brought on the light.
The house touched down in an Inuit Igloolik village. Someone came out to say hello, and seeing all the lamps lit with snow, exclaimed, “Snow burns!”…and then the lamps went dark.
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.
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Always a fun and educational read.