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If for some reason we stop dancing in this life /and we return in another reincarnated in condors /pumas/wolves/deers / it’ll be difficult for us to forget how we set our feet/down on the ground in rhythm to the drum, heart of the mountain /it’ll be difficult for us to forget to respond to the call of the horn / cathartic sound that purifies the river that runs within us. /If for some reason we stop dancing in this life /there’ll always remain waterfalls/ where birds fearlessly fly into a passion about nothing./Nothing doesn’t exist / the quinde-bird tells us while it shakes in front of the fire./ There’s no empty space where there’s music. / Because of that the aya-spirits sing behind the white curtain each with its two faces./If for some reason we stop dancing in this life/ there’ll always be forms for returning to dance/because ancestral memory exists/and the dancer has just one road /the road where her feet go stamping leaping over death /challenging herself.
by Carla Badillo Coronado
Tr.---Jack Hirschman
