Prayer to the Moon
Moon, lead to me a woman to be my wife.
Lead her to me, oh moon.
Moon, a horse, lead to me also.
Moon, lead to me, a tiger.
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018Moon, lead to me a woman to be my wife.
Lead her to me, oh moon.
Moon, a horse, lead to me also.
Moon, lead to me, a tiger.
The poem featured here was written by an unknown Guaraní poet from the Maká people, an indigenous group native to Paraguay. This type of verse is considered part of the Guaraní tradition of religious songs.
Lina M. Ferreira C.-V. earned MFAs in creative nonfiction writing and literary translation from The University of Iowa. She is the author of Drown Sever Sing from Anomalous Press and Don’t Come Back from Mad River Books, as well as editor, with Sarah Viren, of the forthcoming anthology Essaying the Americas. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation work has been featured in journals including Bellingham Review, Chicago Review, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Poets & Writers, and The Sunday Rumpus, among others. She won Best of the Net and Iron Horse Review’s Discovered Voices Award, has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and is a Rona Jaffe fellow. She moved from Colombia to China to Columbus, Ohio to Richmond, Virginia, where she works as an assistant professor for Virginia Commonwealth University. Visit www.linawritesessays.com.
English translation copyright (c) Lina M. Ferreira C.-V., 2018.