Reinaldo Arenas was a Cuban playwright, a novelist and above all, a poet. Celestino Antes Del Alba (1967)1 is the first novel in his "secret history of Cuba," a quintet he called the ‘Pentagonia’. Singing from the Well is by turns oneiric and tender or brutally cruel. It is a depiction of the worst examples of adult life as seen through the eyes of a child. It is a moving tribute to a child’s imagination in a world of barbarity, persecution, and ignorance, which also defines the struggles Arenas took on throughout his life.
His autobiography Before Night Falls was on the New York Times list of the ten best books of the year in 1993. In 2000, the work was made into a film, directed by Julian Schnabel in which Arenas was played by Javier Bardem. (I’ve included a short clip from it at the end of this post.) An opera based on the autobiography with libretto and music by the Cuban-American composer Jorge MartÃn premiered at the Fort Worth Opera on May 29, 2010.
Between 2011 and 2012, I was involved in a theatrical production of Celestino Antes Del Alba in Madrid, Spain. My role was to design the sound and write the incidental music. Below, you have the original text and translation, plus a card, from a small deck that I made for each moment in the play I found interesting. (I like making cards.)
The poem depicts a woman of a former time, a housewife, the pillar of her household. She seems to have a poor and powerless life, in many ways she does. I do not advocate patriarchal values, but she rules because she serves her family, which would be lost without her. Arenas remembers her as a child would, without an understanding of the forces that dominate her life.
El POEMA A MI MADRE
Mi madre es siempre la que se queda en segundo lugar en todo, la que tiene, que esperar a que los demás se sirvan para servirse ella.
Mamá es una vieja que nunca ha podido decir que es vieja , porque en la casa hay otras personas más viejas que ella
Mi madre es la más joven de todas la mujeres
Mi madre es tan joven que yo la llevo cargada a donde quiera
Mi madre es sabia
Mi madre me hace un cuento diferente todas las noches
Mi madre canta lo nunca nadie ha cantado
Mi madre es mi madre
Mi madre sabe treparse a las palmas
Mi madre nada por encima del agua
Mi madre anoche me llevó a ver el sol
Mi madre está limpiando la casa
Mi madre está bailando en el techo
Está cantando en el pozo
Está maullando en la sala
Está rifando un vestido
Está pidiendo limosnas
Está tocando la puerta está cerrando mis ojos
Oigan a mi madre limpiando la casa
Oigan a mi madre bailando en el techo
Oigan a mi madre cantando en el pozo
Cantando en el pozo
Cantando en el pozo
Oigan a mi madre cantando en el pozo
Oigan a mi madre cerrando mis ojos
Cerrando mis ojos
Cerrando mis ojos
Translation
Poem To My Mother
My mother is the one who always comes last in everything, the one who has to wait for everyone else to serve themselves, before she serves herself.
If there is a burnt croquette, this is the one she takes.
Mother is an old woman who has never been able to say she is old because there are those in the house older than her.
My mother is the youngest of all women.
My mother is so young, that I can carry her with me everywhere I go.
My mother is wise
My mother tells me a different story every night
My mother sings what no one has ever sung before
My mother is my mother
My mother knows how to climb the palm trees
My mother swims on the waters
Last night, my mother took me to see the sun
My mother is cleaning the house
My mother is dancing on the roof
She is singing in the well
She is mewing in the parlor
She is raffling off a dress
She is begging for alms
She is knocking on the door and closing my eyes
Listen to my mother cleaning the house
Listen to my mother dancing on the roof
Listen to my mother singing in the well
Singing in the well
Singing in the well
Listen to my mother singing in the well
Listen to my mother closing my eyes
Closing my eyes
Closing my eyes
§A clip from the movie, featuring Javier Bardem reciting The Parade Ends.
El Poema De Mi Madre
Narration and music by Camila HamelEnglish title, Singing From The Well