Into our sight Uno-grande, the big one came Over eight foot tall, three-hundred pounds, Hungry as a greedy hawk, a pale hound! He came one day- I first saw him at eight years old He was old, not strong shouldered, Joyfully laboring to steal our charqui- Hooked onto our clothesline outside Salted and dried, being prepared for winter storage! "Never fear," papa said, "we shall wait for him Catch him," papa looked dark and fierce.
Back then, about 1928, we lived outside Trujillo- Nearby, was the wooded countryside...
Where Uno-grande ran blithely to, with our charqui! His great blue eyes were brimmed With wild beauty, and calmness, he was harmless! Tumbled like a clown, when he ran (escaped) But higher than our house I think...
It was here papa and the neighbors caught him He had chosen our loft to steal from Hungry as a greedy hawk, a pale hound! Old and harmless as a field mouse!...
There he stood, like s ship on a reef There was nothing to do, the old giant had lost Most of his strength, age makes a man weak; There was no violence in him...
He was in fact drowning with exhausted flesh His laboring days had long past! I don't know how he met death, perhaps I Dreamed it, that he died happy and well...
But Papa and Ma, and the neighbors too All left food out for him to eat, from that day on, He surely ate well.
And he too: hunched and Full of happy fury, would leave a deer, or corn Even a few times-chickens, at our door! No: 3340 (5-5-2012) Inspired by Manuel Valera, who during a Saturday afternoon dinner at the author's home, while sitting around talking with several guests, and the subject being giants, he told the author of his grandmother's experience, back in the late 1920s...
and thus, came the "Ode, to the Gentile Giant of Trujillo.
" The Little People The Little People, the grasshoppers of the world Thinking, half asleep thinking- From generation to generation duplicating And reduplicating Eating and laughing under the sun Dancing and talking, gossiping, getting drunk- Indulging; talk about the wise in mockery (how they want to live on forever-think they're cleaver, better, because they're wiser...
) Could care less of possessing the future- Grasshoppers shrill, that is what it is called! Piercing the simple truth, "We'll all be dead, Buried deep, muscle and bone, all alone, Like stone, very, very soon!" Not troubled until the day of ill repute-; like the Grasshoppers, they have the same temperament- the little people.
#3347 (5-8-2012)