Saturday, November 24, 2007

Full Moon: A Moon for Neruda

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-------------Luna para Neruda


Por la ventana la luna plena anida
en las ramas más altas de un pino
------como una gran garza
de plumaje tan blanco que duele.
Inmóvil por un momento, se antoja
una figura luminosa en forma de sirena
en la proa del galeón de la noche
que corta por la espuma de las estrellas
para echar ancla en una isla negra
donde el poeta se ahoga en sus libros
que
uno de sus esclavos le trae,
ya no sabe si Calibán o Ariel,
si para liberarlo del insomnio
o más hundirlo en los sueños.

La luna plena se desenmaraña
de las ramas del pino
y sigue su curso.



-------------© Rafael Jesús González 2007






-------------A Moon for Neruda


Through the window the full moon nests
in the highest branches of a pine
-------like a great egret
of plumage so white that it hurts.
immobile a moment, it seems
a luminous figure in the shape of a mermaid
on the prow of the galleon of night
that cuts through the spindrift of the stars
to cast anchor on a black isle
where the poet drowns in his books
brought to him by one of his slaves,
he no longer knows if Caliban or Ariel,
if to free him from insomnia
or sink him more deeply in dreams.

The full moon disentangles itself
from the branches of the pine
& continues its course.




----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2007
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Thursday, November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving

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-

-----------------Grace


Thanks & blessing be
to the Sun & the Earth
for this bread & this wine,
----this fruit, this meat, this salt,
---------------this food;
thanks be & blessing to them
who prepare it, who serve it;
thanks & blessing to them
who share it
-----(& also the absent & the dead.)
Thanks & blessing to them who bring it
--------(may they not want),
to them who plant & tend it,
harvest & gather it
--------(may they not want);
thanks & blessing to them who work
--------& blessing to them who cannot;
may they not want — for their hunger
------sours the wine
----------& robs the salt of its taste.
Thanks be for the sustenance & strength
for our dance & the work of justice, of peace.




----------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2007


(The Montserrat Review, Issue 6, Spring 2003
[nominated for the Hobblestock Peace Poetry Award];
author’s copyrights.)



-------------Gracias


Gracias y benditos sean
el Sol y la Tierra
por este pan y este vino,
-----esta fruta, esta carne, esta sal,
----------------este alimento;
gracias y bendiciones
a quienes lo preparan, lo sirven;
gracias y bendiciones
a quienes lo comparten
(y también a los ausentes y a los difuntos.)
Gracias y bendiciones a quienes lo traen
--------(que no les falte),
a quienes lo siembran y cultivan,
lo cosechan y lo recogen
-------(que no les falte);
gracias y bendiciones a los que trabajan
-------y bendiciones a los que no puedan;
que no les falte — su hambre
-----hace agrio el vino
-----------y le roba el gusto a la sal.
Gracias por el sustento y la fuerza
para nuestro bailar y nuestra labor
--------por la justicia y la paz.



---------------© Rafael Jesús González 2007



(The Montserrat Review, no. 6, primavera 2003
[nombrado para el Premio de la Poesía por la Paz Hobblestock;
derechos reservados del autor.)

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--- -

Sunday, November 18, 2007

invitation to RUNES, December 2, 2007

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-
-Arctos Press invites you

to celebrate the publication of

RUNES: Connection

an anthology of poetry

Sunday, December 2, 2007

7:00 P. M.

(come early to visit — at 6:30 or so —
for wine, water, & nibbles)

at Book Passage

51 Tamal Vista

Corte Madera, California

415 927-0960.

poets in the anthology reading will include:

DAN BELLAM, NANCY CHERRY,
ALBERT FLYN DeSILVER, CAMILLE DUNGY,
TERRY EHRET, CB FOLLETT,
RAFAEL JESUS GONZALEZ, MARIE HENRY,
MELODY LACINA, NAOMI LOWINSKY,
ROBERT McNALLY, MOIRA MAGNESON,
DANIEL POLIKOFF, EDYTHE HAENDAL SCHWARTZ,
CHAD SWEENEY, SUSAN TERRIS, JOE ZACCARDI

with special guest poet from Los Angeles

DAVID ST.JOHN



CB ('Lyn) Follett & Susan Terris
Editors, RUNES, A Review of Poetry

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Thursday, November 15, 2007

November mail


Balero

(poema en prosa)


En el correo de hoy, recibí de mi amigo ausente un balero, cojinete de bola, la chica esfera de acero como un planeta diminuto, brillante como Venus, o más bien, como la luna nuestra o la luna más pequeña de Júpiter. Así de brillante, pesa en la mano, denso y grave.

Con él una oda mecánica de Gary Snyder:

-----Por el lodo, tuercas trasroscadas, mugre negra
-----se abre, un brillar de acero sin mancilla
-----moldeado a perfecta medida
-----torbellino de entrada y de salida
-----claridad inexorable
-----al corazón
-----del trabajo.

La bolita de acero viene enredada en un trocito de tela con diseños en amarillo y negro como azulejos moriscos o micrografías electrónicas de células, moléculas o átomos. El pedacito de trapo tiene olor humano. ¿Formaría una vez parte de la camisa empapada de sudor que llevaría mi amigo cuando componía el motor de su automóvil? ¿Con ese trapito se secaría la frente húmeda de frustración y esfuerzo? Se ha convertido en reliquia esta pequeña verónica que revela su imagen al olfato.

Este rulemán — dice otra nota — dio aproximadamente 2.032x10
a la 9na potencia vueltas dentro de la caliente oscuridad del motor de mi Jeep. (cantidad igual de abrazos — tu amigo).

En mis sueños la bolita de acero es un planeta, cojinete en el engranaje que mueve las estrellas en la vasta maquinaria de los cielos. El trapito, reliquia de cariño bajo mi almohada, me abriga en una oscuridad caliente y los abrazos que tantos son se vuelven en uno sólo de 2.032x10 a la 9na potencia años de luz. Bendición y sueño.


© Rafael Jesús González 2007




Ball-Bearing

(prose poem)



In today’s mail, I received a ball-bearing from my absent friend, the little steel sphere like a minute planet, bright as Venus, or rather, like our moon or the smallest moon of Jupiter. As bright, it weighs in the hand, dense and grave.

With it a mechanical ode by Gary Snyder:

-----Through mud, fouled nuts, black grime
-----it opens, a gleam of spotless steel
-----machined-fit perfect
-----swirl of intake and output
-----relentless clarity
-----at the heart
-----of work.

The bearing comes wrapped in a piece of cloth with designs yellow and black like Moorish tiles or the electronic micrographs of cells, molecules or atoms. The piece of rag has a human smell. Was it once part of the shirt my friend wore soaked with sweat when he worked on the engine of his car? With that little rag did he wipe his forehead wet with frustration and effort? It has become a relic, this little Veronica that reveals its image to smell

This bearing, dizzy for the next 1,000 years, says another note, “took approximately 2.032x10 to the 9th power turns within the hot darkness of the motor of my Jeep. (equal number of hugs — your friend)”

In my dreams the little steel ball is a planet, a bearing in the gears that move the stars in the vast machinery of the skies. The little rag, relic of affection under my pillow, wraps me in a hot darkness and the hugs which are so many become a single one of 2.032x10 to the 9th power light years. A blessing and a dream.


© Rafael Jesús González 2007


----Correo de noviembre


Nadie sabe
lo que traiga
el correo de noviembre —

un cojinete redondo
como un pequeño planeta,
un pedazo de trapo
----oliendo a un amigo,
---------un arco iris,
un caqui como linterna
para calentar la mano —
poemas.

Tales son las bendiciones
que el correo de noviembre
pueda traer.



------© Rafael Jesús González 2007



----November Mail


One never knows
what November mail
may bring —

a ball-bearing
like a little planet,
a scrap of cloth
---smelling of a friend,
--------a rainbow,
a persimmon like a lantern
to warm the hand —
poems.

Such be the blessings
November mail
----may bring.




-----© Rafael Jesús González 2007
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Sunday, November 11, 2007

Veterans Day

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-


-Veterans Day

When the First World War officially ended June 28, 1919, the actual fighting had already stopped the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the previous year. Armistice Day, as it was known, later became a national holiday, and in 1954 (the year I graduated from high school), the name was changed to Veterans Day to honor all U.S. veterans of all wars.

The only veteran of that war, “the war to end all wars”, I ever knew was my father’s step-father Benjamín Armijo, from New Mexico, an old man who seldom spoke and whom I would on occasion see wearing his cap of The American Legion. (He was also Republican.)

“The war to end all wars” was anything but that and when I was not much more than five, three of my uncles on my mother’s side (Roberto, Armando, Enrique) went off to fight another war, the Second World War.

I missed my uncles and remembered them by their photos on my grandmother’s home altar, very handsome in their uniforms; in the endless rosaries and litanies the women in the family regularly met to pray; and in the three blue stars that hanged in the window.

My uncle Roberto, tío Beto, did not last his second year; he came home and ulcers and los nervios, nerves, were mentioned. My uncle Armando, tío Pana, in the Infantry division or the Cavalry Division (though not one horse was ever ridden into battle in that war), served in the Pacific Theater, and Guadalcanal is a name that in some way sticks in his history. My uncle Enrique, tío Kiki, the youngest, in the Airborne Division, the “Screaming Eagles,” served in the European Theater and parachuted into the taking of Germany.

After that war ended, they came home, tío Pana into a hospital, sick with malaria which affected him throughout the rest of his life; tío Kiki with a malady in the soul not so easily diagnosed, hidden in his quiet humor, gentle ways. All my uncles were gentle men, in all senses of the word. And Beto, Pana, Kiki spoke not at all about their experiences of war in spite of my curiosity and questions which they diverted with a little joke or change of subject. What they had seen, felt was apparently not to be spoken and the family sensed this and respected their reticence. Neither of them joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars that I ever knew.

The Korean War “broke out”, as they say, as if it were acne, not long after. But as for me, I have never fought in any war, though I joined the U. S. Navy upon graduating from El Paso High School to become a Hospital Corpsman and obtain the G.I. Bill with which to enter Pre-Med studies upon my discharge; two of four years in the Navy I spent in the Marine Corps with the rank of Staff Sergeant. The Korean War had already ended. And though I served closely enough to it to be given the Korea Defense Service Medal and am legally a veteran and eligible to join the VFW, I never did nor do I intend to.

If I consider myself veteran of any war, it would be of the Viet-Nam War, not because I fought in it, far from it, but because I struggled against it. (I counseled conscientious objectors, picketed recruiting offices, marched in the streets.) The war veterans I have most intimately known are from that war, many, if not most, wounded and ill in body (from bullets, shrapnel, agent-orange), wounded and ill in the soul (terror, guilt, shame, hatred putrefying their dreams, tainting their loves.)

I am leery of being asked to honor veterans of almost any war, except as I honor the suffering, the being of every man or woman who ever lived. I am sick of “patriotism” behind which so many scoundrels hide. I am sick of war that has stained almost every year of my life. Especially now, in the midst of yet another unjustified, immoral, illegal, untenable, cynical, cruel war our nation wages in Iraq. I am impatient with fools who ask whether I “support our troops.”

What does it mean to “support our troops”? What is a troop but a herd, a flock, a band? What is a troop but a group of actors whose duty it is not to reason why, but to do and die? In the years I served in the Navy and Marine Corps as a medic, I never took care of a troop; I took care of men who had been wounded and hurt, who cut themselves and bled, who suffered terrible blisters on their feet from long marches, who fell ill sick with high fevers. If to support means to carry the weight of, keep from falling, slipping, or sinking, give courage, faith, help, comfort, strengthen, provide for, bear, endure, tolerate, yes, I did, and do support all men and women unfortunate enough to go to war.

Troops, I do not. If to support means to give approval to, be in favor of, subscribe to, sanction, uphold, then I do not. The decision to make war was/is not theirs to make; troops are what those who make the decisions to war use (to kill and to be killed, to be brutalized into torturers) for their own ends, not for the sake of the men and woman who constitute the “troops.”

I honor veterans of war the only way in which I know how to honor: with compassion; with respect; with understanding for how they were/are used, misled, indoctrinated, coerced, wasted, hurt, abandoned; with tolerance for their beliefs and justifications; with efforts to see that their wounds, of body and of soul, are treated and healed, their suffering and sacrifice compensated. I never refuse requests for donations to any veterans’ organization that seeks benefits and services for veterans. I honor veterans, men and woman; not bands, not troops.

If you look to my window on this day, the flag you will see hanging there will be the rainbow flag of peace. It hangs there in honor of every veteran of any war of any time or place. Indoors, I will light a candle and burn sage, recommit myself to the struggle for justice and for peace. Such is the only way I know in which to honor the veterans of war, military or civilian.


© Rafael Jesús González 2007

Berkeley, November 11, 2007


Enrique González Prieto



Saturday, November 3, 2007

Keynote address, Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle National Poetry Day Banquet 2007


Keynote address, 88th Annual National Poetry Day Banquet of the Ina Coolbrith Circle (the literary society founded by Ina Coolbrith, first poet-laureate of California in 1919), Oakland, California, November 3, 2007

Change


Change is always the theme of the poet, for he or she, more than anyone else, is, or should be, most acutely alive — and if life is anything, it is certainly change. After all, the very word verse means ‘turn’ and even to return means a change in direction. We often say of good poetry that it is universal and timeless, though all poetry from Gilgamesh through Shakespeare, to any contemporary poet one may care to name, sings change.

What is universal, timeless is the process of naming itself, Willy Shakespeare’s frenzied poet naming the airy nothings of imagination. It is the art itself that changes and orders chaos, Wallace Stevens’ jug standing in the middle of a wood in Tennessee, William Carlos Williams’ red wheel-barrow before a white picket fence — Adam assuming control of paradise by naming its parts, making out of the Earth a world.

And what, if not making a world, is the task of naming, of art, of poetry, the very word itself meaning to make, to create? Benedetto Croce has said that the poem being created is the poet him/herself, life, the world. Looking about us, we can in awe say, “What great beauty is the poet humanity capable of creating!” And at the same time we cannot help but say, “What a bad poet has humanity been!”

With words, with poetry, consciously or not, we create and change the world through naming and this naming must be conscious — and courageous. Right now, the world we have created overwhelms, threatens the very Earth that birthed us. To change this state of things, we must become much, much better poets (and who indeed is not a poet?) — more conscious of and awed by the beauty of this paradise that is the Earth; more compassionate of our ourselves, of one another, of all life that is the Earth — and more, much more, courageous in naming, naming those beauties, simple and complex; naming that loving of the Earth and the life she bears, naming those ills we must heal. We must change ourselves.

The task of changing, turning things about, creating a better world is ours, most especially ours who call ourselves poets, word-smiths, speakers of the culture, namers. We must sing our praises of the Earth more clearly and more loud; declare our love for one another and all life more passionately and strongly — and name those social ills that plague us with more definition and with more, much more, courage.

Those of us we call neo-fascists* (those gnawed by greed; those eaten by lust for power; those intolerant of differences; those hardened by unconscious or conscious fears; those quick for violence and cruelty) hold sway over our lives with their terrorizing and illegal wars; their torture; their suppression of democracy and its attendant civil liberties; their denial of bread, medicine, shelter, education to those in need; their onerous “Free-trade” coercions that benefit only the rich and rape the Earth; their violation of the Constitution that codifies our claims to justice and is the foundation of our law). By any definition of morality and of the law, the President of these United States of America, the Vice-President, and all their ilk are liars and criminals; and if we are truly honest, truly reverent of life and of the Earth, truly compassionate, truly courageous enough to be worthy of calling ourselves poets, we must name them for what they are.

Shelley has said that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Then let us act as such, for our elected legislators for the most part are very far from being poets and most show precious little courage in defending democracy, the Constitution, humanity, the Earth — in naming things for what they are. I speak not of name-calling (the game of children and the tool of demagogues), but naming (the duty of the scientist and the poet); I speak not of choice but of obligation. In the service of the muses, goddesses of culture, in the service of the word of which the world is fashioned, there is no room for cowardice. We either speak truth or we do not, we either clamor for justice or we acquiesce to crime — if we do not speak truth, if we do not clamor for justice in a democracy, we do not merit the title of poets, much less of free men and women — and the gods save us, for then we refuse to save ourselves, not only from the gag, but from dishonor, and our demise. In a word, we must name things for what they are, do our part to change the world, to heal the Earth and realize the paradise, the only one we know, from which we were never expelled, but have, through strange and arrogant beliefs, mucked it up royally.

But even in questioning, naming, and speaking out for change, in the heat of righteous anger, never must we forego our joy, for it is the very root of our power. Our joy must be as righteous as our anger, rooted first of all in love, in love of the Earth, in love of one another, in love of life, in love of freedom, in love of all that is. Indeed, our anger is only righteous because our joy is compromised by the threat to and abuse of all that we love. (I would like printed a bumper-sticker reading “Don’t fuck with my joy!” and would do it were it not for fear of seeing it on a Hummer, its driver with a cell-phone glued to his/her ear, crowding me off the road.) And indeed much of my anger comes from the distraction of having to confront the “deathers”, the forces of death; I would much, much prefer to devote my poetry to the simple and joyous celebration of life, writing love poems. (But, hey, all my poems are love poems even those of protest; as I exhort in one of these:

---------let us be mirrors for one another,
---------& there let us sing our love-songs
----------------full of righteous anger
-------------------- & joy outraged.


---------------[In Protest of My Love: A Valentine; Farewell to Armaments;
----------------Mary Rudge, Ed., Estuary Press, Oakland, California 2003;
------------------------------author’s copyrights]


Joy must be what we most aspire to and Love its touchstone, touchstone of our beliefs. Indeed, our deep-shit trouble lies in that we humans have not yet learned to love enough. The most major change must be in ourselves. Writing on an archaic sculpture of the god of poetry and prophetic truth, Rilke could not avoid the conclusion: You must change your life.

There is the change we cannot avoid, the eternal movement of life that all poetry celebrates, the all-too-short trip from birth to death. And there is the change we need and must try to make. To do this we must first name things for what they are — to name things for what they are is first to see them clearly, even as Homer did though he was blind. To see things clearly also is an act of courage. We must question our own assumptions and beliefs; put them to the most stringent tests of love. We must question the very source of those beliefs. Descend to the very bowels of the past and question the ancestors:

----------------— Señores míos, Señoras mías,
----------¿Qué verdad dicen sus flores, sus cantos?
----------¿Son verdaderamente bellas, ricas sus plumas?
----------¿No es el oro sólo excremento de los dioses?
----------Sus jades, ¿son los más finos, los más verdes?
----------Su legado, ¿es tinta negra, tinta roja? -

------------- Acepta sólo lo preciso:

---------------------lo que te haga amplio el corazón
------------------------lo que te ilumine el rostro.




--------------------— My Lords, My Ladies,
-----------What truth do your flowers, your songs tell?
-----------Are your feathers truly lovely, truly rich?
-----------Is not gold only the excrement of the gods?
-----------Your jades, are they the finest, the most green?
-----------Your legacy, is it black ink, red ink? —

-----------------Accept only the necessary:

------------------what will widen your heart
-----------------what will enlighten your face.


[Rafael Jesús González; Descent to Mictlan, The Land of the Dead;
-The Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California 1996;
-author’s copyrights]


Only thus will we become, as the Nahuas said, masters of a face and a heart,
in ixtli in yóllotl, enlightened poets worthy of the name.


© Rafael Jesús González 2007

Berkeley, California, November 3, 2007



*fas.cism n. 1. A philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism. 2. Capital F. The governmental system of Italy under Benito Mussoulini from 1922 to 1943. [Italian fascismo, from fascio, bundle, group, assemblage, from Latin fascis, bundle. See bhasko- in Appendix.*]

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language;
American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc. & Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers;
Boston 1979


*fas.cism (fashiz’m), n. [It. fascismo
Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition,
1968 edition New York; The world Publishing Co., publishers


Friday, November 2, 2007

Feast of All Souls (Day of the Dead)

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-

--
--Consejo para el peregrino a Mictlan

------------------------(al modo Nahua)


Cruza el campo amarillo de cempoales,
baja al reino de las sombras;
es amplio, es estrecho.
Interroga a los ancianos;
son sabios, son necios:

— Señores míos, Señoras mías,
¿Qué verdad dicen sus flores, sus cantos?
¿Son verdaderamente bellas, ricas sus plumas?
¿No es el oro sólo excremento de los dioses?
Sus jades, ¿son los más finos, los más verdes?
Su legado, ¿es tinta negra, tinta roja? —

Acepta sólo lo preciso:

-----lo que te haga amplio el corazón
--------lo que te ilumine el rostro.



------------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2007




-----Advice for the Pilgrim to Mictlan

------------------- (in the Nahua mode)


Cross the yellow fields of marigolds,
descend to the realm of shadows;
it is wide, it is narrow.
Question the ancients;
they are wise, they are fools:

— My Lords, My Ladies,
What truth do your flowers, your songs tell?
Are your feathers truly lovely, truly rich?
Is not gold only the excrement of the gods?
Your jades, are they the finest, the most green?
Your legacy, is it black ink, red ink? —

Accept only the necessary:

-----what will widen your heart
----what will enlighten your face.



------------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2007




Descent to Mictlan, The Land of the Dead

(Trance Poem in the Nahua Mode)

[Descent to Mictlan, Land of the Dead: Trance Poem in the Nahua mode (commissioned by the Oakland Museum of California while the author was Poet in Residence under a Writers on Site award by Poets & Writers, Inc. and a grant from The James Irvine Foundation in 1996) was written as a performance piece for voice, drums, didgeridoos, and movement intended to guide the audience upon an introspective journey of the imagination down into the kingdom of Death.

It is not so much entertainment as it is ritual art which, with the consent of each person in the audience to give himself or herself to their imagination, would induce the heightened perception of trance to descend into our collective and personal past to examine the legacy of our ancestors. What they have given us, we have become. It may be read by the attentive reader in the same way.

The times demand that we take stock of who we are, for our great Mother the Earth is wounded and, to heal her, we must heal ourselves, learn from the wisdom of our forebears and discard their mistakes. And in return for what each brings back from the store house of the past, each must make a commitment, in good faith, to change and to heal ourselves; and to care for and protect the Earth, all that she bears, and each other in brotherhood and sisterhood of the spirit and of the flesh. It is a gift and a blessing. Any less and we risk our own extinction on the Earth.]




Cruzad el campo amarillo de cempoales.
Cross the yellow fields of marigolds.
Bajad al reino de las sombras — es amplio, es estrecho.
Descend to the realm of shadows — it is wide, it is narrow.

We come to the mouth of the cavern of caverns,
realm of Mictlantecuhtli, Mictlancihuatl,
Señor-Señora Muerte, Our Lord, Our Lady of Death —
It is wide, it is narrow;
pasad, enter this chamber of yellow blooms,
--------the cempoalxochitl, the shield flower,
------------flor de muertos, flower of the Dead.

We step, we walk;
-----we walk the sacred;
---------every step is sacred.
We walk in the tracks of our ancestors,
we step in the tracks of the old ones,
----our grandmothers, our grandfathers,
----the ancients:
--------the people of the drum
--------the people of the canoe
--------the people of the pyramids
--------the people of the spear
--------the people of the shuttle and loom
--------the people of the sickle and plow,
------------our ancient ones, all of the clans.
They taught us to see;
they taught us not to see;
-----from them we learned to see;
-----------we learned not to see.
They taught us to dream;
------they taught us to fear;
-----------much to learn, much to unlearn.
We step in their tracks, we step on the sacred.

We walk, we step in the tracks of our ancestors,
----our relations:
---------the ocelot
---------the buffalo
---------the coyote
---------the bear
---------the salmon, the serpent, the eagle, the hawk,
---------monkey, turtle, frog,
---------the owl and the bat.
Further, further we walk:
the spider, the moth, the fly, the coral, the mite,
ameba, paramecium, germ, virus - all of the clans.
They taught us to see, to live in the now,
------to smell, to taste,
------to hear, to live in the now.
We step in their tracks,
-----we walk on the sacred —
---------all our relations, all of the clans.

We walk, we step in the tracks of our ancestors,
our relations:
-----the fern, the redwood
-----the pine, the oak
-----the cactus, the mesquite
-----the violet, the rose
-----the fig, the grape-vine, the wheat
-----the corn, the thistle, the grass
-----the mushroom, the moss, the lichen, the algae,
-----the mold — all of the clans.
They taught us to touch, to fully delight in the here,
------to find contentment on the here.
We step in their tracks,
-----we walk on the sacred —
---------all our relations, all of the clans.

We walk, we step
-----in the tracks of our ancestors, our relations:
--------the granite, the sandstone
--------the jasper, the serpentine
--------the turquoise, the flint
--------the opal, the crystal
--------the agate, the jade
--------the gold, the iron
----the silver, the lead, the copper, the tin,
----boulder, pebble, sand, dust — all of the clans.
They taught us silence, quiet;
------they taught us to stay, to be.
We step in their track,
-----we walk on the sacred —
---------all our relations, all of the clans.

------It is dark; it is light —
here the roots of the Tree of Life,
------árbol de la vida, tree of Tamoanchan.
Look: wealth, treasure, our inheritance.
Look: teocuitatl, oro, gold, shit of the gods
-------chalchihuitl, jade, jade, the green stone
-------quetzalli, plumas, feathers, the precious things
-------xochitl, flores, the roots of flowers —
gifts and burdens,
------the useful, the hindering,
----------the dark medicine, the glittering poison.
Pick and choose: empowering joys there are,
--------------------useless sorrows there are;
needs true — clear and lovely as water
desires true — ruddy and joyous as wine;
--------needs false and deadly as arsenic
--------desires false and deadly as knives;
swords of jewels, plows muddied and dulled by stones;
--------dazzling powders, herbs rich in visions.
Choose and sort — it is not much you can carry.

Our ancestors, our relations make council; listen:

Much have our mothers, our fathers
-------our grandmothers, our grandfathers
-------our ancestors left us:
-----------gifts are there for our blessing
-----------debts are there for our curse.

Interroga a los ancianos — son sabios, son necios.
Question the ancients — they are wise, they are fools.

Señores míos, Señoras mías — my Lords, my Ladies,
---------¿Qué verdad dicen sus flores, sus cantos?
---------What truth do your flowers, your songs tell?
---------¿Són verdaderamente bellas, ricas sus plumas?
---------Are your feathers truly lovely, truly rich?
---------¿No es el oro sólo excremento de los dioses?
---------Is not gold only the excrement of the gods?
---------Sus jades, ¿son los más finos, los más verdes?
---------Your jades, are they the finest, the most green?
---------Su legado, ¿es tinta negra, tinta roja?
---------Your legacy, is it black ink, red ink?

They offer gifts, they give teachings:
------precious, worthless
------healing, dangerous —

sort, choose — choose the precious, the healing;
-----------------discard the worthless, the harmful;
------there is much to learn, there is much to unlearn.
Choose - each offers gifts, our ancestors, our relations —
---------human, animal, plant, mineral —
------------------they are us, our relations.
Choose and sort, sort and choose
---------these gifts are of the Earth, la Tierra
---------these gifts celebrate and nurture her
---------these gifts blaspheme and destroy her
---------------------These gifts are of the Earth.
Sort and choose, choose and sort.
-----The ancients are wise, the ancients are fools;
----------riches they gathered, garbage they hoarded.
Acepta sólo lo preciso; accept only the necessary:
--------lo que te haga amplio el corazón
--------what will widen your heart
--------lo que te ilumine el rostro
--------what will enlighten your face.
Pick and choose —
------hush —
--------------in silence sort and choose, sort and choose.

Hush —
----------Look carefully - have we chosen well?
the way back is hard, full of dread
----and much have our ancestors left us.
---------What of their gifts is worth the sharing?
----------------Consider well —
------------------------the gold and the jeweled sword
--------------------is not more than the work-dulled plow.
Consider, test your choice —
---------------------------------hush —
Tasks await us on the Earth for our healing, for hers —
-------difficult, great.
---------------Choose well for the journey, for the work.
hush —
---------remember:
----------------------joy is the root of our strength,
------------- the roots that feed us come from the heart
---------the science most wise disturbs least —

-----hush — hush — hush

So, we choose what we choose.
Remember: from these gifts we make our own;
--------------we add to the hoard.
-------Do not burden the children.
Do not carry so much we cannot hold each other’s hands.
----Remember: the most precious treasure
-----------------is that which we take for the giving.

We choose what we choose —
-----make ready — take up your bundle,
-----the seeds of our making - it is light, it is heavy;
-----precious are the bones of our ancestors;
-----leaving them buried makes them no less precious;
they are of the Earth, Madre Tierra, Coatlicue,
-----------------Pachi Mama, the Earth needs them.
------ehecatl, aire, air
------tletl, fuego, fire
------atl, agua, water
------tlalli, tierra, earth.

Make ready to leave the store house, the treasure;
walk round the cavern once as the clock turns
------from the East, red and gold with knowledge
------to the South yellow and green with love
------to the West black and blue with strength
------to the North white with healing.
You are now at the threshold — it is wide, it is narrow
-----------------------------------it is dark, it is light
-----------------------------------it is steep, it is plain.
Do not look back;
leave Mictlan, reino de la muerte, realm of the dead;
-------leave the cave of the ancients,
--------------the cave of our treasure;
------------------begin the way back.
What you bring back from the land of the dead,
-------from among the bones of the ancestors,
-------------is your gift to life.
---------------------Pray the gods you choose well.

Vuelve, vuelve, return.

It is your commitment,
-----the healing of yourself and the Earth.
What will you do?
-------How will you honor the ancestors?
-------------What will you say to the children?
--------------------What will you do for justice and peace?

Vuelve, vuelve, return.
Go, vete —
------------lleva la bendición de la vida;
------------------carry the blessing of life.
------------Go, vete —
form a face, form a heart.
forma un rostro, un corazón
in ixtli, in yollotl

Go, vete, go —
que los dioses te tengan, may the gods keep you.

In whatever you do, bendice la vida,
--------------pass on the blessing of life.

Vete y bendice la vida;
-----Go and pass on the blessing of life.

Vete, ha acabado; Go, the journey is finished —

Vete y empieza un día nuevo,
-----Go and begin a new day.

-----Vete, Go.



© Rafael Jesús González 2007



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Thursday, November 1, 2007

Feast of All Saints (to make an ofrenda)

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El corazón de la muerte ~ The Heart of Death

-------ofrenda a los difuntos --------------- offering to the dead

---------al modo nahua------- / --------------in the Nahua mode



---Le hacemos, formamos
---el corazón a la muerte —

---We make, we form
---the heart for death —


de flores
de flores amarillas,
del cempoalxochitl —


of flowers
of yellow flowers
of marigolds —





de agua
de agua clara,
consuelo de la sed —


of water
of clear water
comfort of thirst —





de pan
de maíz, de trigo
nuestro sustento —


of bread
of corn, of wheat
our sustenance —




de comida y bebida
de nuestro alimento
que da deleite al paladar —

of food & drink
of our nutrition
that gives the palate delight —




de luz
de luz que alumbra el camino
anhelo de mariposas
-------------------nocturnas —
of light
of light that shows the way
desire of night moths —



de calaveras de azúcar
de calaveras dulces
como la vida fugaz —

of sugar skulls
of candy skulls
sweet as fleeting life —




de copal, artemisa,
incienso, humo perfumado
que invoca a los dioses —

of copal, sage,
incense, perfumed smoke
that invokes the gods —






de flor y canto
de flor y canto le hacemos
el corazón a la muerte.


of flower & song
of flower & song we make
the heart of death.




-------------------------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2007
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