My son, you may think, A banana is a banana. But there is a substantial difference between the two.
Plátanos are for kitchens steamy with hot oil, humid air, too many people in one friendly space.
Guineos are for gringoes.
Plátanos have many hijos. All the hijos of the plátano, even the stunted and the weak, are allowed a struggle at life.
Guineos are selected, and their sons are, too. The rest are cut down before they sap the nutrients from their parents' soil.
Wherever they can find space to put down roots and head for the sun grows the plátano.
The guineo is planted in orderly rows. These are maintained on a calendar basis.
The versatile plátano may be fried, grilled, boiled--even while green the plátano makes itself useful in soups, empanadas, chifles, patacones, bolones...
Guineos are good for milkshakes.
The plátano stays close to home.
The guineo earns a visa to visit foreign lands. But recently, the guineo caught a deadly and contagious plague; soon it will be gone from this place. Meanwhile, we are left with the
plátano, and who else wants them
but us?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
the language in this one is great (by which I mean, English... kidding). I also think the sprawling non-lines work well in a DH Lawrence sort of way, hiding the punches by skimming past them in "conversation."
ReplyDeleteI wonder, though, and perhaps others can chime in on this, if the first stanza should be last, or if that would be Too Much. (I think that would also remove the need for the last three lines, which would be in my book another benefit).
speaking of milkshakes, do they have shamrock shakes down there? i think i beat my St Patrick's record with 6 this year.
My two cents is that you need the warmth of the first stanza up top... the poem runs the risk of coming off as sort of coldly political if there isn't some sense of love for one of the cultures from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI like the children here-the son being addressed, the hijos of the plátano. I wish that could be addressed more explicitly again in some way at the end of the poem.
ReplyDelete