Member-only story
Literary experimentation
Not All Roads Are Highways
On the paths to follow — A bilingual approach
Not all roads are the ones we think are to be followed. Not everyone will live their lives as we expect to live ours. I know nothing about you — de ti nada se — other than you are waiting for the truck to take the plantains to town and on the ferry to the mainland — y yo nada jamás sabré.
El camión pasará cuando él tenga que pasar. A la hora justa e indicada. — At the right time what must happen will. We will not force what we have no control, which is nothing at all.
No todas las vidas serán como las nuestras. Y eso lo evidencia tu presencia. — Of that gives evidence your presence. — Hay más caminos que los que nosotros hemos seguido.
Not all lives will be like ours — your presence, evidente evidencia. There are more roads than the ones we have just found.
¡Cuan extraños ellos! ¡Cuan foráneos, los caminos!
You are not the one who is the foreigner. It is me who is walking on a path that is but yours.
La tierra te conoce a ti. Conoce ella a tus botas — your rainy boots — que protegen de culebras, barro y agua. — This land emerging from the entrails of the earth.
