What time are the big people

going to come back?

Blind Santiago is striking six

and already it’s very dark.

Mother said that she wouldn’t be delayed

Aguedita, Nativa, Miguel,

be careful of going over there, where

doubled-up griefs whimpering their memories

have just gone

toward the quiet poultry-yard, where

the hens are still getting settled,

who have been startled so much.

We’d better just stay here.

Mother said that she wouldn’t be delayed.

And we shouldn’t be sad. Let’s go see

the boats—mine is prettier than anybody’s!—

we were playing with them the whole blessed day,

without fighting among ourselves, as it should be:

they stayed behind in the puddle, all ready,

loaded with pleasant things for tomorrow.

Let’s wait like this, obedient

and helpless, for the homecoming, the apologies

of the big people, who are always the first

to abandon the rest of us in the house—

as if we couldn’t get away too!

Aguedita, Nativa, Miguel?

I am calling, I am feeling around for you in the darkness.

Don’t leave me behind by myself,

to be locked in all alone.