The Memory of Plants in Three Poems of Gloria Mendoza Borda

Dulce naranja dulce luna © Gloria Mendoza Borda

Introduction, selection and translation from Spanish © Andrea Echeverría

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Gloria Mendoza Borda (1948) is a renowned Peruvian poet from Puno who currently resides in Arequipa. She joined the Carlos Oquendo de Amat Group in the 1960s and has published Wilayar (1971), Los grillos tomaron tu cimbre (1972), Lugares que tus ojos ignoran (1985), El legendario lobo (1997), La danza de las balsas (1998), Dulce naranja dulce luna (2001), Mujer, mapa de música (2004), Q’antati deshojando margaritas (2006), Desde la montaña grito tu nombre(2013), Amtasiña (2013), and Mi abuela, mi patria (2018). In the three poems below, included in Dulce naranja dulce luna (2001), Mendoza represents how plants communicate their memory. Three of them: the cherry tree, the avocado tree and the honeysuckle. These texts provide an ecological vision based on Quechua-Aymara forms of knowledge that transcend the anthropocentric perspective. To initially approach these poems, perhaps the best thing to do is to ask yourself: what do these plants communicate? What vision do they convey about the passage of time? What forms part of their memory? I invite you to read these poems within the historical framework of the political violence that affected all of Peru, and especially provincial cities and rural communities in Peru during the Conflicto Armado Interno (1980-2000). As you will notice, these plants cry and suffer the passage of time, nostalgically remember the past, and communicate their experience about traumatic episodes that happened in this context.

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The Cries of the Cherry Tree

I am the old cherry tree

who saw them grow

as artists

I also knew how to be an artist

I also knew how to be a river

phosphorescent birds

would stay in my currents

they made nests with dazzling weeds

and they sang to life

my roots

keep moving forward

through the underground

I cry in the name of mother earth

in the skin of the boys

suffering

the desolation of the courtyard

I cry

on the posters

that they hung

on my mutilated arms

“Protest against the Cherry Tree’s Death”

I cry

because I don’t know the reason

why did they destroy my branches

I cry

in the name of the white doves

(those who came from the Plaza Mayor

they will no longer be able to shelter from the sun

under my shade)

I cry

because the sound of the boys’ pan flutes and guitars

stayed in me

they played in my lap

during the sunsets

however

I exist

in our memory

I exist

I am the invisible cherry tree

that keeps them company

my fruits used to adorn

girls’ heads

that took shelter

in my skirts

why did the ax become enraged

with my silence?

from my invisible image

I predict life

I light the fire

my currents grow

I also feel bird

I also feel man

I also feel artist

I also feel river.

Listen to Gloria Mendoza reading her poetry in Spanish

Looking for the Avocado’s Path

In these times

I did not bear fruit

it’s true

but my leafy green inspired

announced a time of hope

I tried to get closer to the sky

I walked more than a hundred years

downward

towards the immensity

I flourished on the cliffs of silence

only the trace of my forms remained

the semi-destroyed sculpture

looking for my lost path

and the dismayed look

of my friends

I am the result

of changes and death.

The Honeysuckle’s Agony

Mother and lady

centennial

I cry my green agony

drunken my flower

numbs

the morning

I scream

I implore

they don’t listen to me

I sing in the language of the green

dry

and weak

my skin

in other times

my fruit was honey

as a child

the sculptor Jorge Mendoza

took one of my branches

and soon

ran with my scent

looking for his mother

I was born

before all of you

‘the house of art’

came later

in my roots

lives the story

of men

that passed through

and left

I still exist

a cable

covers my fingers

crosses my feet

I hope the crows

don’t eat my leaves

in each contour

of my path

there is a wire

at each knot

I break and twist

I look at the blue sky

the song of birds

accompany my green symphony

wild dance

my heart

the wound

it won’t let me walk

a terrifying shadow

covers my eyes

from the sun

A white dove

drinks water

in the pool

in the well

the mirror

of my image

the water

doesn’t reach

my insides

I’m hung

from the throat

imprisoned

forgotten

mutilated

nightfalled

hanged

scrawny

stretched

withered

disoriented

scared

threatened

bitten

without truce

oh perfection

I cry my green

from so much spiraling

death stalks me

but does not find me

here I am friends

rooted

ancient

lonely

silent witness

youthful dreams

students go on strike

for struggles and triumphs

for permanent creation

for happiness

alone

I cry

my green agony

hungry

imprisoned

centennial.

For more about Gloria Mendoza

“Gloria Mendoza Borda and David Robertson in conversation with Ingrid Bejerman”, Hay Festival Arequipa 2021.

About the translator

Andrea Echeverría Langsdorf is an Associate Professor at Wake Forest University. She earned her doctoral degree in Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of Yeyipun en la ciudad. Representación ritual y memoria en la poesía mapuche (Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, 2021) and El despertar de los awquis: migración y utopía en la poesía de Boris Espezúa y Gloria Mendoza (Paracaídas Editores & UNMSM, 2016), as well as of several academic articles published in journals such as Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, Latin American Research Review and the Canadian Journal of Hispanic Studies. She is currently working on a book that studies Mapuche visual art.

~ Siwar Mayu, October 2023