Bread & Puppet

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Bread & Puppet

I just received the link Arts: Puppets and Protest on the Bread & Puppet Theater from a friend and it served as a reminder that exactly twenty years ago my compadre John McLeod and I traveled cross-country to Glover, Vermont to work with Peter Schumann. It was a summer-camp for workaholics. Besides taking part in every aspect of the large productions and performances, John and I wrote a script (on the Onondaga origins of the Iroquois League, on which the U. S. Constitution is based, the theme that year), directed it, designed and worked on the construction of the set, designed and worked on the costumes, and performed in it. I cannot find the script, lost forever perhaps, but I share with you the closing poem below.

That was the year that was: recently returned from a trip to Europe, that spring I attended the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for my first time, the Sun Dance of the Arapaho in Ignacio, Colorado just before traveling to Vermont, and upon my return to San Francisco Bay, conducted the Wakwa Society’s medicine wheel to mark the Harmonic Convergence.

Now, twenty years later, we are experiencing the darkness predicted before a new age of enlightenment is birthed: the Earth is severely wounded, our government is in the hands of fascists (government lies, illegal and untenable wars, habeas corpus suspended, torture a national policy, unauthorized surveillance of the citizenry, illegalization of protest and dissent by executive order, wealth more and more concentrated in the hands of the few — and the list goes on.)

But we need not, must not let it become even darker before the light breaks. We are, or must become, the light. We are not powerless and must not allow ourselves to be made so. It is in our hands if we accept that responsibility (and even if we do not.) Throughout the world, let us work from the heart through our every work and art to heal ourselves and the Earth.

© Rafael Jesús González 2007

Let the Hand Do

What the heart professes
------let the hand do —
the caress, the rite,
the healing touch,
the greeting,
the hoisted beam,
the woven net,
the record on the rock.
-----Let the act
give body to the thought,
for what the hand touches
----------or performs
gives substance
to what the heart informs.



------© Rafael Jesús González 2007

Que la Mano Haga

Que lo que el corazón profese
-----la mano haga —
la caricia, el rito,
el toque que sana,
el saludo,
la viga elevada,
la red tejida,
la inscripción en la piedra.
-----Que el acto
le dé cuerpo al pensar,
que lo que la mano toca
----------o hace
le da sustancia
a lo que el corazón informa.



------© Rafael Jesús González 2007
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