英文詩歌賞析：Cachoeira

　　Cachoeira

　　by Marilyn Nelson

　　We slept， woke， breakfasted， and met the man

　　we'd hired as a tour guide， with a van

　　and driver， for the day. We were to drive

　　to Cachoeira， where the sisters live：

　　the famous Sisterhood of the Good Death，

　　founded by former slaves in the nineteenth

　　century. "Negroes of the Higher Ground，"

　　they called themselves， the governesses who found

　　ed the Sisterhood as a way to serve the poor.

　　Their motto， "Aiye Orun，" names the door

　　between this world and the other， kept ajar.

　　They teach that death is relative： We rise

　　to dance again. Locally canonized，

　　they lead quiet， celibate， nunnish lives，

　　joining after they've been mothers and wives，

　　at between fifty and seventy years of age：

　　a sisterhood of sages in matronage.

　　We drove on Salvador's four-lane boulevards，

　　past unpainted cement houses， and billboards，