EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALFebruary 1, 1999
Huerta Santa Maria
Near Galaroza
Babies
They’re so new they’re still wet.
Two babies are born at Santa Maria this morning. Now they are
standing, all wobbly-legged, naïve to the dangers of foxes and the cars wobbling
themselves, along the dusty, cratered road to the Huerta. Their mother is old,
and Javier is surprised by the successful births. Their legs are long and stand like high
heels.
These little lambs are the last to get off the road. They are slow in
their innocence, but the mother and the rest of the flock wait at the edge, on the grassy
hill, bleating in a multitude of voices. Everyone sounds different. Someone coughs. The
sound is one of an elderly man, like the man who spits in the park in Seville. We are
about to sit down on a bench. Then he spits, and we move along.
Mother bleats a loud, alto "hurry up". The lambs call out,
and their voices are like children’s with not yet full-grown voice boxes. High,
urgent, like after inhaling helium from a balloon.
When they move to run, they hop with the new legs. These long, tiptoed
stilts have a mind of their own and the lambs hop and teeter with the momentum. They take
off like steroids, and skip to the orchard.
