Fruit of the Drunken Tree
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Read between August 17 - August 23, 2022
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We called it el Borrachero,
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the Drunken Tree.
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Penn Hackney
Ceiba speciosa in Wikipedia, with a very different description and called palo borracho. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceiba_speciosa And not these either: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_trees See it’s effect on Petrona, pp. 58-60
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Who’s to say why Mamá decided to grow that tree in her garden? It may have been that long mean streak in her, or it may have been because she was always saying you couldn’t trust anyone.
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It was, after all, the tree whose flowers and fruit were used in burundanga and the date-rape drug.
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Apparently, the tree had the unique ability of taking people’s free will.
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Burundanga was a native drink made out of Dru...
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Penn Hackney
Wow
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la Soltera
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Petrona gets a room even though she doesn’t stay over night? Question
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Pablo Escobar.
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North America seemed like such a clean, pleasant place.
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The rain was sleek on the black-tar street and the police were well-mannered and filled with principles.
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Petrona didn’t look thirteen, though that’s what Mamá said. Her face was ashy and her eyes bitter-old. Her hair was cut short like a boy’s and she wore a white apron with border lace like a fine tablecloth. She always had flushed cheeks and red knuckles.
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I wondered what Petrona thought about as she closed her eyes.
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Simile extended
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Petrona wore a cloud of silence
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Simile
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the silence in Petrona’s throat
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Simile
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Simile double mixed - fur, fruit
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silence
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Mamá
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her Indian grandmother, seeing ghosts,
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silence.
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Simile nice
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Haha
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Haha
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maybe Petrona was a poet or maybe someone under a spell.
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Haha
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Simile
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Simile metaphor
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Petrona, Our Lady of the Invasiones. Petrona, Patron Saint of Our Secret Girlhood.
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Has her own bathroom
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Cassandra said that the magazines and the lipstick weren’t something a poet would own.
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Haha I think I like cassandra
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Simile - extended: bright planets, deep with death
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Haha
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dirty
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Haha
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darkly set eyes deep with death
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what happened to the bright planets?
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the girl whose name bubbled up beneath our hours.
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Question
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it must have been Petrona’s saintlike qualities that stilled Mamá’s distrust.
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Ella no es nada más que una mosquita muerta.”
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dead fly? Interesting ….
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Mamá
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people who pretended to be weak disgusted her.
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she called any nonviolent person a li...
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Haha
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“Virgilio Barco
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Haha. I wonder if there’s a different idiomatic expression in Spanish. Question. In fact I wonder if the book is translated at all?
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I wanted to yell at the television like Mamá and Papá, but I had to learn how to properly do it. I gathered that being a mouse was better than being a mosquita muerta, and being a snake was better than being a man, because flies pretending to be dead could be crushed, mice were shy, and men were persecuted; but everybody always avoided snakes.
Penn Hackney
Haha
7%
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I wanted to yell at the television like Mamá and Papá, but I had to learn how to properly do it. I gathered that being a mouse was better than being a mosquita muerta, and being a snake was better than being a man, because flies pretending to be dead could be crushed, mice were shy, and men were persecuted; but everybody always avoided snakes.
Penn Hackney
Haha