Analysis of The Alpaca
Gabriela Mistral 1889 (Vicuña) – 1957 (Hempstead)
She is harnessed for a long journey; on her back she carries an entire store of wool.
She walks without rest, and sees with eyes full of strangeness. The wool merchant has forgotten to come to get her, and she is ready.
In this world, nothing comes better equipped than the alpaca; ones is more burdened with rags than the next. Her sky-high softness is such that if a newborn is placed on her back, he will not feel a bone of the animal.
The weather is very hot. Today, large scissors that will cut and cut represent mercy for the alpaca.
When something is lost in the park, to whom do we look but this ever-prepared beast which seems to secretly carry all things?
And when children think about the objects they have lost—dolls, teddy bears, flying rats, trees with seven voices (they can be hidden in only one place)—they remember the alpaca, their infinitely prepared companion.
But look at those eyes, those astonished eyes without knowledge; they only ask why she has been harnessed for such a long trip and why no one comes to relieve her.
The high plateau is to blame for this tragedy—the mother alpaca incessantly stares at it. The mountain was also casting off burdens, and so its summit became clear, and filled the eyes of the mother alpaca.
She was taken down from the plateau and situated near a nonsensical horizon, and when she turns her neck, she continues looking for the older alpaca, for the one who sheds a pack on high, and returns to the sun's radiance.
"What have you and I done to our Andean cordillera?" I ask the alpaca.
Scheme | ABCDEFGDHD |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110101101011101010111 1101101111110011010101111001110 01110110011001011110111010111011110101110111110110100 01011010111011101011010010 110110011111111100111111001011 011010101011111011011110101111001011101000101100001010 11111101010110110111111011011011111010 0101111111000100100100111010110101100111001101011010010 11101100101001001000100111011010101010010101110111001101100 1110111101001110010 |
Characters | 1,703 |
Words | 283 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 10 |
Lines Amount | 10 |
Letters per line (avg) | 122 |
Words per line (avg) | 29 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,222 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 288 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 1:24 min read
- 225 Views
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"The Alpaca" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/14512/the-alpaca>.
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