Electric blind blues

My eyes

have broken

the lightning
shattered

the campesino electrocutions
in the fields

of verdant fears
in the footsteps

of indian shadows
the lightning shards

cut up my liver
scrape the sockets

of my eyes
with the darkest threat

of starless nights
the crickets call out her name

over and over
whirring,

displacing thunder,

dispensing with formalities
pouncing

on the drum

of my senses
making the lightning tremble

slicing open the irises,
bleeding electricity.

I am going blind

because the lightning won't rise up
against the mother
as acrylic clouds

dance upon the rain
inside my skin 

the lightning broken,

cries,
lashes at the hat

the farmworker wears

to carry the sun
The lightning 

s broken,

mortally wounded,

dying

inside my eyes
My eyes become

a mudslide of extinction...

Madre-abuelita (for manuela & josé)

I long for my grandmother's tortillas

her bold hands that seized fevers and captured ghosts

her guidance, her comales, where chiles and tomatoes sang

she nourished us with food and prayer

to plant flowers

to surround us with family, community and hope

she didn’t want anyone to die

she preferred to die first

than see us suffer

she promised to see us after death

she came back twice

once she alone and the last time she was with her husband José.

She smiled sternly, but she was smiling.

Everything works out in the end

Her bones rest

Her footsteps let us know she does not sleep

Until everyone is safe

She loved

black coffee,

fresh jalapeños that made men cry

and talking back to God.

As she lay dying

Her eyes

Her hands

Her wilting heart

showered us with tenderness and compassion

Even when she recovered from the first heart attack

she didn’t stop working

Instead of resting

we would return from work

to find the house swept and mopped

food cooking on the stove

a stack of freshly cooked tortillas

and she on her feet

challenging us, defying her own heart

praying

her whole body

was a prayer

a thunderous prayer

then she decided to die

after she found out some terrible news

she was betrayed

she tried to strangle my grandfather

who did not resist

he knew what he had done and was willing to let her have what she wanted now

Gustavo and I were in a side room playing guitars

when we heard arguing voices crescendo

then bodies crashing against walls and floors

We stuck our heads out the door and slowly came out

She was choking my abuelito

He just lay there, she on top, still

holding him down with her legs over his chest and knees on his arms

Then she flopped down on the floor

Leaning her head against the frayed sofa

Enraged, spit drooling out of her mouth

Her body was still a prayer

Invoking herself against herself

That summer

She continued working in the fields

Until she suffered another stroke at the onset of autumn

Then winter came

And she died

Her body still a prayer

When we buried her it began raining, then the sun broke through

The winter day became springtime

We sent her off with prayers, partying

Time under the open sky

The stars swelling until everyone cried

because we were going to miss her

we miss her prayers, her praying

her backbone

her food, her caldos, tortillas, her ponqui pie, her lipstick

her curses, her defense

She kept her promises, she waits for everyone.

Will we rest alongside her bones

or will we be scattered by the wind

only to be reached by her voice,

rescued by her prayers?

Manuela, arise

sons and daughters

grand-sons and granddaughters

great-grand-sons and great grand-daughters

Our mother

Our grandmother

does not forget anyone

does not leave anyone behind…

[Poem: 2002 | "Manuela Ochoa on her wedding day," 6"x8" oil pastels, 1994]

Si Rafael Alberti hubiera sido campesino...

Si Rafael Alberti hubiera sido campesino

Yo soy campesino

marinero en la tierra,
migrante de las olas y las ondas semilleras,
navegante sin papeles y fronteras

Refugiado en los zurcos de nuestra América
poesía de pala, azadón y tractores
marinero en las labores de la verdura y la ternura...

[Poema 6] The Quilt People

-->

Immigrants

of my land

You make

Americans

believe they alone

are

Americans

You traverse

the chaos

of American borders

You are the human

wire-cutters

saving our land

with us

from the razor barbed-wire

twisted around our wrists

sunk into the hip of our continent

tighter and tighter

till your blood explodes

from the American wrists.

Immigrants

Indians all

invisible,

cross-fertilizing

hope and fear

into strength

with no way out

except life

*

Ah mis fronteas

Ah mis dulces

Fronteras

amargas

realidades

donde los indios

invisibles

cruzan

tenue

espinadorsal

un ejército

de polvo

un abrazo

de vientos

una raíz

clandestine

derrocando

muros

inhumanos.

*

the quilt of farmwokers

wraps around and on top of the land

patches of green,

canals

and dusty roads

surrounded by planks

Yet my farmworkers

die in the desert

freeze in the winter

starve in the spring

are lost in the autumn

yellow leaves

yellow eyelids

yellow skin

yellow tears

yellow suns

Where is the quilt

to wrap around

the sore shoulders

of my farmworkers,

Where?

The horizon

curves

around my arms

the hip where humanity

suckles

now smooth

now flaying

in the sun

Only farmworkers and Indians

can dance with the sun

to give us another day

to rescue ourselves and our world

from those who take the quilt

for their own

arnoldo garcía


When words die.


My grandmother suffers a stroke
and the natural world receives a mortal blow.
The healer, la curandera, dies.
With her,
the plants that spoke through her hands
the plants that allowed us to ingest them
the plants that healed stomachs, bee stings,
fevers, rashes, upset emotions, made
conversations flow deep into the evenings
preceded by prayers and riddled
with laughter, healthy gossip, insights
the plants that illuminated stars and nights
died with her.
In the season that was to be winter for
my skin and autumn for my eyes.

Abuelita's nature, la naturaleza humana,
the crowbar of her tongue
prying open the language of leaves, roots, seeds
germinating words that rub, soothe, relax

Dirt under her fingernails
her palms smooth as her face
where leaves, roots, seeds rest
before ingestion,
before toasting them
on a griddle the size of her lungs,
her heart a molcajete firme

What lies behind my eyes?

Fields, horizons, hands,
humans rocking gently back and forth,
silhouettes harvesting the future

My grandmother kneeling between
two rows of green beans
picking
then suffering a heart attack

Behind my eyes
the sing of a frog
the whirlwind
a Yakama ancestor in our migrant camp
the broken horse of loneliness
who eats grass from my hand

I spend nights
ironing towels
until they are untouchably hot
and press them up against
my grandmother's breasts
her angina has flared up
and the heated towels ease the pain
and this is her final remedy
before getting up to make tortillas
and beans for tacos that we'll eat in eight hours for lunch
which she'll wrap in wax-paper

Everyone is at work
the harvest season
spares no time
spares no one

She is in pain (because she told me)
She cringes and leans left as if someone
has just punched her breast
and screeches out a syllable of hurt.
She leans up against the table
where there is a stack of testales
ready to be unrolled into tortillas
She momentarily rubs her left arm
and under her breast
with the right hand she quickly
pulls and flips the three tortillas
that are cooking on the comal...

She will die working in the fields.
We bury her as the harvest season is close to ending
Her casket is rained upon.
We celebrate, eat food, make music, laughter, families.
Tomorrow we return to work without her.

*

With her, mint, chile verde, pipian, enchiladas, jardines, rosas, lirios, unknown plants, their leaves and seeds, aceite de víbora de cascabel, her hands that coerced fevers and pain out of our bodies with gentle massages, her daily rituals, foodmaking, working in her gardens after work, loving her grandchildren, speaking with her sons and daughters every day and night. Her prayers and praying, her daily visits with neighbors, her footprints in the fields, her hands on the vegetables.