August traced with a touch the
black spiral that is the primordial and universal symbol of the sun. It was painted on the searing days that
always ended in rain, a coil with a tiny barb on its end like the scorpion’s
tail. White peaches were almost (or
perhaps already) ripe, and the grapes were turning dark, slowly shifting from
the ghostly tea color that was the chrysalis of their successful development in
the searing mist of San Carlos to a rich royal magenta, imago for must. The hands and hearts that had planted the
vines and trees, those daughters of Helios, beset, yearning, were now old
women, invisible as the Samaritan, bent and burnt by the years. No golden cormorant rises out of the water,
but the parrots and bee-eaters, caracaras and kites, all cloud and hunt and
fill the arboreal atmosphere of palms, ceibas, parasitic vines and orchids—the
continuously encroaching jungle. The
confinement of August has passed, as all labor does, and soon the rains will
begin to thin. Only the newborn will see
the month for what it is, a cycle that begins with the uncoiling of life
itself. The white hawk carries meat and
skin to its young.
This passage begins the excerpt from my novel, Before the Rains, found in the latest issue of The Mayo Review. (Yes, I finally received a contributor’s copy!)
It
is exceptionally satisfying to see at least a little portion of this book I
have worked on for over a decade finally in print. I really couldn’t be happier with how well
the story, “Saturday Afternoon,” made up of two separate but related vignettes
in the book, actually reads. Hopefully, the rest of the book will someday (soon!) see the light of day as well.
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