Leo

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--------------León

El león, ojos de carnalina,
colmillos, garras de sardónice,
lleva en el pecho corazón de rubí
que guarda el fuego fijo del valor.
-----Anhela devorar al sol
-----y mudarlo en oro
que surgiera por sus venas
como río caliente de luz.



----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2011



-------------------Leo

The lion, carnelian eyes,
fangs, claws of sardonyx,
carries in his breast a ruby heart
that holds the steadfast fires of courage.
------It desires to devour the sun
------& turn it into gold
that would run in his veins
like a hot river of light.



----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2011
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Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 - April 27, 1932)

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Santa Prisca, Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico

----------From Another Tower

------------------------to Hart Crane


Call love the knell
if in the paralytic dream
of longing hell
a bird should wound you.

-----(I too have heard
-----the bells of Santa Prisca
fling blue prisms of delight
into my green volcanoes -
-----voices like the darknesses
-----inside nuns' skirts —
iron sounds that starch the mind
and bleach dark hurts.)

-----Fate was molded thus
-----to give no reason
--------------------------or return
hasten the words which find no answer,
-----wander —
-----------------hesitate —
------------------------------and turn.

Perhaps the sea can tell —
-----resound the gong in its purpuric caves,
----------perpetuate the knell
and toll the clappers of the waves
to drown this glorious hell.




--------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2011



(El Grito, Vol. 6 no. 3, Spring 1973;
Author's copyrights.)

Hart Crane

-----------------Desde otra torre

----------------------------a Hart Crane


Llámale al amor el toque
si en el sueño paralizado
del ansioso infierno
un pájaro te hiriera.

-----(Yo también he oído
-----las campanas de Santa Prisca
esparcir prismas azules del deleite
en mis volcanes verdes -
-----voces como las oscuridades
-----dentro las enaguas de monjas —
sonidos de hierro que almidonan la mente
y decoloran daños oscuros.)

-----El destino se moldea así
-----para no dar razón
--------------------------o retorno
apresurar las palabras que no encuentran respuesta,
-----vagan —
----------------titubean —
------------------------------y vuelven.

Tal vez el mar pueda decir —
-----retumbar el gong en las cavas púrpuras,
----------perpetuar el toque
y doblar los badajos de las olas
para ahogar este glorioso infierno.



------------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2011

Hart Crane by David Álfaro Siqueiros
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full moon: On a Little Flask of Water Brought from Mt. Shasta

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Sobre un frasquito de agua traída del Monte Shasta

Sobre el altar hogareño el agua del manantial sagrado imperceptiblemente se agita en su frasquito al sentir la llamada de la luna llena que asoma por la ventana iluminándola.

Es dócil el agua a pesar del jalar de la luna; ningún resentimiento tiene contra las paredes cristalinas del frasquito que la enjaula aunque aun guarde memorias de su viaje oscuro por las entrañas de la montaña sagrada, de su escape tumultuoso por el ojo sagrado que da principio al río que abastece la región. Sabe que es rezo, su pureza anhelo del ser humano que la contempla iluminada por la luz de la luna.

Primordiales son las ligas que unen la luna, el agua, el hombre que reza.

© Rafael Jesús González 2011

On a Little Flask of Water Brought from Mt. Shasta

On the home altar, water from the sacred spring imperceptibly stirs in its little flask on feeling the call of the full moon peering through the window, illuminating it.

The water is docile in spite of the pull of the moon; no resentment does it have against the crystalline walls of the little bottle that cages it even though it keeps memories of its dark journey through the entrails of the sacred mountain, of its tumultuous escape through the sacred spring that begins the river that supplies the region. It knows that it is prayer, its purity the longing of the human being who contemplates it illuminated by the light of the moon.

Primordial are the ties that bind the moon, the water, the man who prays.

© Rafael Jesús González 2011
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Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904/September 23, 1973)

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


Por la ventana la luna 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 le trae uno de sus esclavos
ya no sabe si Calibán o Ariel,
si para liberarlo del insomnio
o más hundirlo en los sueños.

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



----------© Rafael Jesús González 2011

Pablo Neruda by Arthur Sirdofsky

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


Through the window the 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 moon disentangles itself
from the branches of the pine
& continues its course.


-----------© Rafael Jesús González 2011
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Farmworker Justice Breakfast & Trader Joe's Action, Saturday, July 16

Farmworker Justice Breakfast & Trader Joe's Action

Saturday, July 16 · 9:00am - 11:00am
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists
1924 Cedar St. (at Bonita), Berkeley, CA

Join the East Bay community in welcoming members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (a Florida-based farmworker organization) to California and learning about their innovative and highly successful Campaign for Fair Food.

Following breakfast, a short presentation, and a poetry reading by Bay Area's Rafael Jesús González, we'll walk down the street to Trader Joe's (1885 University Ave.) to demand that the company help end farm worker exploitation in its supply chain.

Bring your signs, drums and outdoor voices!

Help build a food system that respects workers' rights!

For more information, contact Damara Luce

Please "attend" here on Facebook and invite your friends.


BACKGROUND:

TRADER JOE'S CAMPAIGN
By paying just one penny more per pound of tomatoes they purchase from Florida, Trader Joe's could help dramatically improve wages for farmworkers. Yet despite $8+ billion in sales last year (and being owned by a multi-billionaire family in Germany), they refuse to make a lasting commitment to do so.

From November through May, 90% of the tomatoes produced in the U.S. come from Florida, where farmworkers have long faced sweatshop conditions, including:

* Stagnant, sub-poverty wages
* No right to overtime pay
* No benefits whatsoever
* Sexual harassment
* In extreme cases, modern-day slavery

Nine other corporate food leaders -- including Whole Foods, McDonald's and Burger King -- have signed on to participate in the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' Fair Food Program, an innovative, worker-led solution to the human rights crisis in the fields. (The program includes a penny-per-pound premium for fairer wages and a strict code of conduct for better working conditions.)

Until Trader Joe's follows suit, it can expect growing discontent from consumers across the country.

COALITION OF IMMOKALEE WORKERS
The CIW, a community-based farmworker organization headquartered in Immokalee, FL, with over 4,000 members, seeks modern working conditions for farmworkers and promotes their fair treatment in accordance with national and international labor standards. Among its accomplishments, the CIW has aided in the prosecution by the Department of Justice of six slavery operations and the liberation of well over 1,000 workers.

In addition, the CIW uses creative methods to educate consumers about human rights abuses in the U.S. agricultural industry, the need for corporate social responsibility, and how consumers can help workers realize their social change goals. The CIW's Campaign for Fair food has won unprecedented support for fundamental farm labor reforms from retail food industry leaders, with the goal of enlisting the market power of those companies to demand more humane labor standards from their Florida tomato suppliers.

ADDITIONAL READING:

* The True Cost of Tomatoes by Mark Bittman (New York Times, 6/14/11)

* Trader Joe's Reveals Its Inner WalMart (CIW website, 6/29/11)


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Fida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954)

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Frida

Conocí a Frida por primera vez en el verano de 1950, tenía yo quince años de edad y en un viaje a México mi padre nos llevó a la familia al museo nacional de arte moderno. Allí conocí a Frida en doble, un lienzo grande (el más grande que creo jamás haya pintado) en que dos Fridas, una vestida de blanco en el estilo de fines del siglo XIX y la otra en traje tehuano, sentadas ante un cielo atormentado, se cogían de la mano, los corazones expuestos y sangrando, las miradas clavadas en la mía. Quedé absorto y fascinado. Mi madre tuvo que desprenderme jalándome de la mano.

Creo que entonces me enamoré de Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderón. La buscaba por dondequiera; entonces sus cuadros no eran tan fáciles de encontrar como los de su esposo Diego. Cuando los encontraba, allí estaba ella, siempre mirándome con mirada fija y estoica aunque en muchos de ellos el dolor que ostentaba como una flor maligna o una joya venenosa era palpable — collares de espinas; corsés como instrumentos de tortura medievales; la espina vertebral expuesta, una columna quebrada; una que otra lágrima como adorno de perla, gotas de sangre como alhajas de rubí. Cada uno de estos pequeños cuadros era como una reliquia preciosa del sufrir o una golosina de dolor, retablos como mandas por algún milagro perverso, exvotos a un dios cruel. Lo que me asombraba eran los colores, la sensualidad, la belleza con que celebraban su dolor. Entre los cincuenta y tanto autorretratos que pintó, aun en los que no aparecen imágenes del dolor, jamás, de que yo sepa, se pintó sonriente.

Poco a poco me enteré de su historia — su rebeldía precoz, el polio que de niña le atacó, el accidente de tranvía atroz que de joven la dejó en pedazos, su amor obsesivo por Diego (aunque no tan obsesivo que le impidiera otros amores con hombre o mujer), su valor que prestaba fuerza a su empeño por la alegría (que a veces ha de haber fingido), su culto a la vanidad, su afán por prendas regionales, joyas arqueológicas tan pesadas que le han de haber costado llevar, su alarde de mestiza.

Ahora la encuentro por dondequiera, aun en las películas, y en los bailes de disfraz parece que se multiplica cada vez más; la encuentro en las salas, los comedores, las cocinas, las recámaras, los baños. A veces me causa celos, mi Frida promiscua, ubicua.

© Rafael Jesús González 2011

Frida

I first knew Frida the summer of 1950; I was fifteen years old and on a trip to México my father took the family to the National Museum of Modern Art. There I met Frida in double, a large canvas (the largest one I believe she ever painted) in which two Fridas, one dressed in white in the style of the end of the 19th century and the other in the dress of Tehuantepec, seated before a tormented sky, held each others hand, their hearts exposed and bleeding, their gazes locked onto mine. I stood there absorbed and fascinated. My mother had to pull me away dragging me by the hand.

I believe it was then that I fell in love with Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderón. I sought her everywhere; then, her paintings were not as easy to find as her husband Diego’s. Whenever I found them, there she was, always looking at me with fixed and stoic gaze even though in many of them the pain she displayed like a malignant flower or poisonous jewel, was palpable — necklaces of thorns; corsets like medieval instruments of torture; the exposed vertebral spine, a broken column; a few tears like pearl ornaments, drops of blood like ornaments of ruby. Each of these small paintings was like a precious reliquary of suffering, a delicacy of pain, offerings for some perverse miracle, ex votos to a cruel god. What amazed me were the colors, the sensuality, the beauty with which they celebrated her pain. Among the fifty some odd self-portraits, even in the ones in which there appear no images of pain, never, that I know of, did she paint herself smiling.

Little by little, I came to know her history — her precocious rebellion, the polio that attacked her as a child, the terrible trolley accident that left her in pieces young, her obsessive love of Diego (though not so obsessive that it prevented other loves with man or woman), her courage that lent strength to her determination for joy (which at times she must have feigned), her cult of vanity, her zeal for regional costumes, archaeological jewels so heavy that they must have hurt her to wear them, her boasts of being mestiza.

Now I find her everywhere, even in films, and at costume balls she seems to multiply herself more and more; I find her in the salons, the dining rooms, the kitchens, the bedrooms, the bathrooms. She sometimes makes me jealous, my promiscuous, ubiquitous Frida.

© Rafael Jesús González 2011
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4th of July, Independence Day

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For my brothers and sisters who on this day may want to wave flags, these thoughts to ponder:





It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.

Baha'u'llah

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Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.

James Bryce (British politician, diplomat, and historian, 1838-1922)

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To him in whom love dwells, the whole world is but one family.

Buddha

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The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.

Jimmy Carter (39th U.S. President (1977-81). Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002. b.1924)

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The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?

Pablo Casals (Spanish Cellist and Conductor, 1876-1973)

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It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.

Arthur C. Clarke

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True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.

Clarence Darrow

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You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting the other man's freedom. You can be free only if I am free.

Clarence Darrow (U.S. Lawyer, Speaker and Writer, 1857-1938)

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I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.

Eugene V. Debs

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We do not consider patriotism desirable if it contradicts civilized behavior.

Friedrich Durrenmatt

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Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!

Albert Einstein

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He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The interests, rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury.

William Lloyd Garrison (Declaration of Sentiments, Boston Peace Conference, 1838)

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I love America. I love the world. Brotherhood and sisterhood have no borders. My heart orbits the Earth, love cannot be measured in longitude or latitude.

Terri Guillemets

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Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

Abraham Lincoln

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We are free, truly free, when we don't need to rent our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift a piece of bread to our mouths.

Ricardo Flores Magón, speech, 31 May 1914

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Borders are scratched across the hearts of men
By strangers with a calm, judicial pen,
And when the borders bleed we watch with dread
The lines of ink across the map turn red.

Marya Mannes, Subverse: Rhymes for Our Times, 1959

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Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

Guy de Maupassant (French writer of short stories and novels, 1850-1893)

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We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us . . . The old "manifest destiny" idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can — and that without cant, without the assumption of self-righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations.

Francis John McConnell

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If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident.

Montesquieu

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Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarreled with him?

Blaise Pascal

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If you can't get them to salute when they should salute and wear the clothes you tell them to wear, how are you going to get them to die for their country?

General George S. Patton (U.S. general in World War I and II, 1885-1945)

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If patriotism is "the last refuge of a scoundrel," it is not merely because evil deeds may be performed in the name of patriotism, but because patriotic fervor can obliterate moral distinctions altogether.

Ralph B. Perry

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I couldn't help but say to [Mr. Gorbachev], just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. [We'd] find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together.

Ronald Reagan, 1985 [Stupid indeed, and blind, if we cannot see our common humanity without a threat from another planet; what greater threat to humanity, and the Earth, than ourselves? R.J.G.]

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Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country.

Bertrand Russell (English logician and philosopher 1872-1970)

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Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

Bertrand Russell

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To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.

George Santayana

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Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

George Bernard Shaw

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Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

George Bernard Shaw

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I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world.

Socrates (469 BC - 399 BC)
also credited to Diogenes of Sinope (412 BC - 323 BC)

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I have no sense of nationalism, only a cosmic consciousness of belonging to the human family.

Rosika Schwimmer

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The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.

Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (Russian thinker, novelist and philosopher, 1828-1910)

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The time is fast approaching when to call a man a patriot will be the deepest insult you can offer him. Patriotism now means advocating plunder in the interest of the privileged classes of the particular State system into which we have happened to be born.

Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

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The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.

Earl Warren

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As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America [U.S.] among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

George Washington (1st US President (1789-97), 1732-1799)

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You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.

Malcolm X (U.S. black militant leader the early 1960s, 1925-1965)

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