You can never have too much sky.
You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky,and sky can keep you safe when you are sad.
Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky.
Butterflies too are few and so are flowers and most things that are beautiful.
Still,we take what we can get and make the best of it.
When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees.
When there is nothing left to look at on this street.
Four who grew despite concrete.
Four who reach and do not forget to reach.
Four who reach and do not forget to reach.
Four whose only reason is to be and be.
But my mother's hair, my mother's hair, like little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day,
sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding you and you feel safe, is warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell when she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin,
and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring.
The snoring, the rain, and Mama's hair that smells like bread.
One day I'll own my own house, but I won't forget who I am or where I came from. Passing bums will ask, Can I come in? I'll offer them the attic, ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house.
Some days after dinner, guests and I will sit in front of a fire. Floorboards will squeak upstairs. The attic grumble.
And the story goes she never forgave him.
She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.
I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be.
I want to be
like the waves on the sea,
like the clouds in the wind,
but I’m me.
One day I’ll jump
out of my skin.
I’ll shake the sky
like a bundred violins.
Nobody looked up not once the day Angel Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut, just like a falling star, and exploded down to earth without even an "Oh."
Marin, under the streetlight,dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere.
I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life.
Someday I will have a best friend all my own.
One I can tell my secrets to.
One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain them.
Until then I am a red ballon,a balloon tied to an anchor.
Everything is holding its breath inside me.
Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas.
I want to be all new and shiny.I
want to sit out bad at night,a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt.
Not this way,every evening talking to the trees,leaning out my window,imaging what I can't see.
In the movie there is always one with red red lips who is beautiful and cruel.
She is the one who drives the men crazy and laughs them all away.
Her power is her own.She will not give it away.
Not a flat. Not an apartment in back.
Not a man’s house.Not a daddy’s .A house all my own.
With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My book and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed.
Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody’s garbage to pick up after.
房子是小埃斯佩郎莎的梦想,也是全书的核心象征。她要长大,总有一天要离开芒果街。但到书的最后,埃斯佩朗莎决定要回来:They will not kown I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out.
她的成长就像她的名字,埃斯佩朗莎,在英语里是希望的意思,而在西班牙语里则意味着“哀伤、等待”。
A House of My Own
一所我自己的房子
Not a flat. Not an apartment in back.
Not a man’s house.Not a daddy’s .A house all my own.
With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My book and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed.
Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody’s garbage to pick up after.
不是小公寓。也不是阴面的大公寓。
也不是哪一个男人的房子。也不是爸爸的。是完完全全我自己的。
那里有我的前廊我的枕头,我漂亮的紫色矮牵牛。我的书和我的故事。我的两只等在床边的鞋。
不用和谁去作对。没有别人扔下的垃圾要捡起。
Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.
只是一所寂静如雪的房子,一个自己归去的空间,洁净如同诗笔未落的纸。
——《芒果街上的小屋》
全书由44节短小的片段独白构成,每节一个不同的话题,综合起来讲述了一个关于美国大城市中贫苦墨西哥裔的少女埃斯佩朗莎的成长。是诗一样的喃喃自语。
张悦然的解释很恰当:这本小书所记录的,是从女孩蜕变为女人的过程,是少女时代的最后一段光阴。它就像熟透的芒果一样,饱满多汁,任何轻微的碰撞都会留下印记。
房子是小埃斯佩郎莎的梦想,也是全书的核心象征。她要长大,总有一天要离开芒果街。但到书的最后,埃斯佩朗莎决定要回来:They will not kown I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out.
她的成长就像她的名字,埃斯佩朗莎,在英语里是希望的意思,而在西班牙语里则意味着“哀伤、等待”。
这篇是全书的倒数第二篇,最短,最美。 (綿綿)