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A few nights ago, at bedtime, I found myself with a voice I couldn't raise above a whisper. I'd been fighting a cold and talking too much throughout the day... but still, the bedtime routine had to go on. My nena was sitting by a stack of book in her big girl bed while my chiquitina was watching me and waiting from her crib. So, I improvised. I grabbed The Tree is Older Than Your Are: A Bilingual Gathering of Poems & Stories from Mexico, ed. by Naomi Shihab Nye-- a poetry book we hadn't yet cracked-- off the shelf, and started (sort of ) reading it: I whispered the poems and, in the middle of the room, pantomimed them.
Picture it. During the long and beautiful "La plaza," I made my hands dance over the girls like clouds, I mimicked rain fall, balloons, and firecrackers to accompany these stanzas:
La nube se detiene
al verse reflejada
en el agua estancada
de la plaza.
Bulle la plaza
esas aguas tranquilas
hierven de ninos y bunuelos,
de globos y cornetas,
los cuetes suben al cielo
devolviendole los truenos
y una lluvia de luz
amenaza el avion
que absurdamente vuela
el 15 de septiembre
cuando todos deben estar en tierra.
Al dia siguiente
la plaza es la misma de siempre:
las palomas se reponen del susto
de las luces y los cuetes
sobre el aguila del kiosco
o en la cabeza del heroe.
And though maybe at first my girls' smiles were those of "mami's finally gone crazy!" they really did get into the poetry in motion. And the days since, even with my voice back, they want a repeat performance.
Naomi Shihab Nye collected these poems to "represent a small but important bit of the spectacular richness which is Mexican literature." The book includes a great variety of poets (Octavio Paz, Jose Juan Tablada, Rosario Castellanos, and other talented if lesser-known poets of all ages), English translations beside the original Spanish, and amazing art... all while remaining kid-friendly.
What reading the collection this way made me realize was how much kids love literature that can come to live off the page, and how this literatura is so vibrant it lends itself perfectly to this kind of tribute and preservation.
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