My father mounted his horse and rode away into the country.
My mother stayed behind, sewing in her chair.
My little brother lay asleep.
I, a lonely child under the mango trees,
read the story of Robinson Crusoe,
a long story that never came to an end.
In the w hite sunlight of noontime a voice that had learned
to sing us to sleep long ago in the slave quarters —and had never been forgotten —
called us to coffee.
Coffee black as the old Negress herself
savory coffee,
good coffee.
My mother sat sewing,
looking at me:
— Hush . . . Don’t wake the baby! —
at the cradle on which a mosquito had lit,
and sighed from the depths of her being.
Somewhere far off my father was exploring
the endless woods of the plantation.
And I never knew that my own story
was more beautiful than Robinson Crusoe’s.

Translated by Dudley Poore