6 July 2009. Sunshine announcing itself even at dawn, silver and blue-green ripples on face of pool, fragment of shamrock pennant from weekend festivities... Churning swimmers, depart and return...
Latinate possibilities. As in the wry and tender words of Jaime Dávalos, from his Cancionero, about the origins of La Candelaria: "...Nació una zamba, una tarde, de esas que yapan con el alba, en lo de Poncho Marrupe; en la vieja casa de la finca La Candelaria, delicioso paraje del Valle de Lerma, sobre las regueras del Río de Arias, allá...entre algorrobos y talares, tuscas y sauces playeros; donde en la umbria del monte se oye el moroso canto del zorzal en contrapunto con el isócrono lamento del crespín..."
“A zamba was born late one evening, one of those songs that come with the dawn, at Poncho Marrupe’s place, in the old house on the country estate, La Candelaria, a delicious spot in the Valley of the Lerma, on the waterways of the Río de Arias, yes, there…amidst native trees—the algorrobos and talares, tuscas and streamside willows; where in the shade of the woods one can hear the delayed call of the thrush, in counterpoint to the isochronous lament of the crespín…”
(Note: The crespín—tapera naevia, or striped cuckoo. An Argentine folk story about this bird tells of a woman calling out for the husband she has lost... It's a bit more complex, however: he's described as ever hard-working, whereas she loves to party. In his hour of need, the wife abandons him for several days of dancing and drinking and song, returning only after he’s passed on. But in her loneliness, like the crespín, she spends the rest of her days calling out...)
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