Analect 2.283x

2 June 2008. Sun through gray, incipient. Winds at night, birch tree branches scraping upstairs glass. Songs of the Argentine, that sliding movement--transladando--an invariable surprise. Un Día Me Fui del Pago--una milonga surena-- de don José Lerralde, from the publo of Huanguelén. Middle of the pampas, Provincia de Buenos Aires--dry lands, cattle, wheat. Echoes of the rural--as in gaucho, so hard to use, that word, the layers of attitude, even when first written down.

And yet, a love of words. Language might be going too far. Matungo, for instance--an old horse. Or matucho--the same. Bagual--also a horse, unbroken. Baquiano--a scout, someone who knows the land. Asombrao--surprised, astonished. Peludo, pescuezo, retobao...manotiar...toscas, yerra...derrotao. Twists, turns, deformations--angles and reclaimings, limbs of the algorrobo, or the roots of the ombu--growth of the soil, and native smarts. But there weren't any roads, just the rastrilladas--and an expanse of parched land stretching into the distance--a la cordillera, to the mountains, and then the great sea beyond, where, following Negriazul, the sun each evening goes to bathe...