The Time of the Rains: A Mexican Prose Poem

Don Bruno in his milpa (corn, beans and squash)

On the August 20, 2002, Don Bruno stood in my garden in Guanajuato, Mexico and delivered this wonderful prose poem.  Rushing to my study, I tried to render the cadences as best I could in English. I was reminded of it recently and thought it worth reposting.

Don Bruno, a Mexican campesino

Don Bruno, a Mexican campesino (his self designation) can write his name but not much more. He is one of the most intelligent and thoughtful people I have met.

He taught me an enormous amount about how people in the villages viewed Mexican history in the second half of the twentieth century. It was he who instructed me about mule management, about the lawlessness following the Revolution as the dreadful civil war of the early twentieth century, about curanderos (traditional healers), about the economics of campesino maize, about the bracero program (legal but badly administered program of guest workers in the US), and about brujería (magic).

He grew the traditional corn, beans, and squash for himself and his family on four acres of whitish rocky ground at 7,000 feet in central Mexico. He also grew flowers for fiestas and worked in the nearby city of Guanajuato, where I met him.

On this high plateau, where you find Mexico City and much, perhaps most of the population of Mexico, the rains that come in late May are eagerly awaited. The weather is hot, plants are shrivelled, the air is dusty. Three out of ten years here, 150 miles north of Mexico City, the rains fail three years out of ten. Good rains bring relief, pleasure, and hope for the future.

Don Bruno’s rhapsody on good rains

“The time of the rains are good for everyone.

The maize is growing well. There are lots of vegetables: tomatillos, tomates, chayotes, calabaza (squash), chilitos. Oh, the chayotes, you should see them.

There’s plenty of milk and it’s so rich that if you leave it in a pitcher for just an hour, there’s a layer of cream on the top.

Everyone is eating well, not just tortillas and frijoles (maize and beans), but fruits and vegetables and plenty of milk to drink.

All the dams are full and soon they will have to open them so that they do not burst.

And it’s easy to wash yourself. That isn’t always so in our village which is very poor in water. But now you can go to any cañada (steep-sided valley running into the hills) and find pools of water and wash yourself in them.

Even the birds are happy.

And it’s very beautiful. There are streams coming down from the Bufa (cliffs along one side of the city of Guanajuato).

Towards Sauceda the fields are white with the flowers of San Juan. The people cut armfuls and take them to the market in Irapuato to sell them. They’re always white–the roses of San Juan we call them. And the aroma–it’s like having a jar of perfume.

There’s another flower, estrellita, white and purple. It’s a kind of onion but it doesn’t smell.

And in the sierra there are wild nardos (tuberroses) in all different colors. They too have a wonderful aroma.

And the fruits grow big and juicy–the membrillos (quinces) are big as [two hands held somewhat apart]. And the vining plants are growing over the fruit trees and turning them white with their flowers.

We haven’t seen rains like this in years.

It rains every night, a gentle rain that soaks into the ground. It’s a good rain.

It’s not like the rain that comes with thunder and destroys the plants and runs off the soil.

The pools that are usually full of white brackish water are now full of beautiful clear water, good water.

There will be a good maize harvest this year. The people in the villages will have enough for themselves and for their pigs and chicken and some to sell too.

Don Bruno

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