Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

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Journal of Italian translation
Music Is A Child Of The Grass
Your skin is translucent in the still air of this room.
Clay is prerogative; eyes are derivative.
We live in the shadows of immense hands
like death that will take our sex away.
Bridal days and wedding nights of grace and youth
and doors opening in women.
Music is a child of the grass
and teaches us the cost of frostbite.
We can’t separate the misunderstandings
or wash dishes in the music box.
We talk and spend the word on our burning hands.
A cinder of a joke catches in our throat.
You laugh to hold onto the hurrying waters.
A fern is a fan that resembles a rainbow
and the last ghosts of Indians are asking for food
in the amber waves of dying grain.
Dancing Song For My Daughter
Stars dance their light
Night sky shivers.
Listening to waves,
dance, my daughter!
Wind wanders fields
singing in wheat.
Hearing wind’s song,
dance, my daughter.
Earth spinning holds
children in her skirts.
Feeling moon’s hands,
dance, my daughter.
Love winning fills
all with Her power.
—for Gabriela Mistral