Persons [ ] Smiles before a Dawn with no one Else | Rosario Castellanos, 1925-74

Rosario Castellanos

“I am the daughter of myself.
I am born of my own dream.
My dream sustains me.”

Wailing Wall, 1958

“Writing has been a way of explaining
to myself the things I do not understand.” *

“We have to create another language, 
we have to find another starting point…”

Language as an Instrument of Domination, 1973

“We have to laugh. Because laughter,
we already know, 
is the first evidence of freedom.”

“All we can do is dream, or die,
dream that we do not die
and, at times, for a moment, wake.”

Nocturne, 1957 ~

“I’m a woman sitting here with all my words intact
like a basket of green fruit.”

Silence Near an Ancient Stone, 1952

“No one is necessary
not even for you, who by definition
are so needy.”

The Return, 1960

“What the earth dreamt
is written in the tree.”

“Then silence happened:
the silence that is born of water, foaming,
Suddenly it curdles in a looking glass.
So we grow quiet. We do
the same as lakes to see the sky.”

The Sea, 1960 *

“I, who have been a net spread in the deep,
return to the surface without a fish.”

The Useless Day, 1950 ~

“Nothing, nothing am I but
a small, loving watercourse.” *

Rosario Castellanos, 1925-74
tr. * Irene Nicholson / ~ Magda Bogin