It Shrouds Under A Twilight Thicket Of Vines, Under A
Dome Of Cottonwood-Trees, Drowsy And Murmurous As A Hive.
Hereabouts are some strips of tillage and the headgates that dam up
the creek for the village weirs; upstream you catch the growl of
the arrastra.
Wild vines that begin among the willows lap
over to the orchard rows, take the trellis and roof-tree.
There is another town above Las Uvas that merits some
attention, a town of arches and airy crofts, full of linnets,
blackbirds, fruit birds, small sharp hawks, and mockingbirds that
sing by night. They pour out piercing, unendurably sweet cavatinas
above the fragrance of bloom and musky smell of fruit. Singing is
in fact the business of the night at Las Uvas as sleeping is for
midday. When the moon comes over the mountain wall new-washed from
the sea, and the shadows lie like lace on the stamped floors of the
patios, from recess to recess of the vine tangle runs the thrum of
guitars and the voice of singing.
At Las Uvas they keep up all the good customs brought out of
Old Mexico or bred in a lotus-eating land; drink, and are merry and
look out for something to eat afterward; have children, nine or ten
to a family, have cock-fights, keep the siesta, smoke cigarettes
and wait for the sun to go down. And always they dance; at dusk on
the smooth adobe floors, afternoons under the trellises where the
earth is damp and has a fruity smell.
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