regrets of many seasons are kept, he admits
there will never be an end to his thanks for the
magnificent cause of being delivered on the ruinous
Golgotha hill—in daily thirst for light he once
again emerges deeply moved.
[Wandering]
I have walked the streets of many
cities, flown to many places, slept
in foreign parks, pretended to have
a home in cracked spaces across a
thousand shores, found people beside
me say nothing of stumbling with
sorrow, melancholy junkies with a
taste for cheap wine drunk after a
numbing fix. I have seen people in
the barrio unconcerned with where
they live lose sight of their dearest
dreams and get lowered into earth.
I have wandered neighborhood cemeteries
shaking my head at graves with notes
taped to headstones and colorful flowers
with rotting petals the things left behind
to scream regret. I have known the
taste of absence, the obscenities of faith,
the church dropped into darkness, and my
soul thickly sick. I wait for the stainless
days when the low voice of the beggar
in rags at the end of a dark street calls
your life is moored to another shore so
stand up—I walk now for the sake of
him.
[The Barrio]
in the barrio the walls sing, whistles
blow for kids playing on the street,
rice slowly cooks on stoves in kitchens
smelling of yesterday’s saintly feast.
shopping bag abuelas dream of big
houses with pale maids that cannot
speak a word of Spanish, children with
private tutors sitting on the plastic slip
covered sofas educating dreams, a world
with brown lives rolling in justice and free.
in the barrio, my brown hands searched the
dark for light, found one brighter than the
sun, and will not let it go.
[Hispanic Heritage Month]
we have gathered words these
many years to write letters to
spread across the sky until the
end of time. the voices rise in
the harvest fields, they carol
songs from histories ground to
the deaf of ear, speak heaven’s
dreams to those who labor in the
kitchen, patching tires, fixing cars,
building things, packing meat, serving
food, harvesting crops, laying bricks,
mending pipes, nailing wood, stretching
wire, playing sports, raising kids, teaching
school, holding court, leading Mass, healing
the sick, and marching to old Uncle Sam’s
beating drum. we have gathered this month
with aged blood-shot eyes to remind
America of her beautiful brown skin and
a history magnificently chatted for hundreds
of years in Spanish. we have gathered on
the white porches calling for liberty to come
out, loathing to be carried away in chains, and
invisibility to plunge without halting a single
step into the deepest grave. we have gathered
to tell you with perfect broken-hearted dreams
America through all our deeds is the place we
rumble loud for home, justice, belonging and
peace.
[The Way to School]
the street I walked to school was
dense with old buildings without a single
tree planted in front, liquor stores were
on every other block, and winos who sang
ABC’S out loud for school kids to hear. on the
way, I wondered why tourists never strolled down
this street taking pictures of unemployed vets who
questioned after hammering tiny countries down
coming back to sit on sidewalks drinking cheap
wine and pledging allegiance with their slurring
tongues. at the school, teachers pushed smiles to
lips but never heard a story from a neighborhood
resident
