Llanera

I've recently taken to calling myself a llanera (girl of the llano). Growing up I knew I lived on the llano estacado. I knew I lived on the Staked Plains and I knew Coronado on his infamous and ultimately empty expedition in search of gold had come across the western plains of Texas and the eastern plains of New Mexico. They drove wooden stakes into these vast stretches of llano, otherwise they would be lost -- lost like Cabeza de Baca perhaps. I knew only the llano. I knew tornadoes in spring and ice and wind in winter. I knew to watch for rattlesnakes and porcupines.  I knew the smell of saddle soap and rich oats for the horses. I watched my dad fit horses for their shoes and I saw him fall and fall and fall every time we got a new horse -- a new, dangerous horse to break. I hung back, pretended not to be scared when the clouds churned or coyotes howled. I learned to be quiet and terrified. My dad? Well, he loved every single terrifying inch of the llano.

Breaking a Horse

                                    for Dad

Already sold,

you have no choice

but to hold;

and although fit with iron and leather,

he will not break.

Perhaps this is your first

mistake.

Hands knotted into an impossible shape

conceal their frailty

with tape.

Still, I am unable

to escape.

Caught in your grip

a calf in barbed-wire, to stand

is my only desire.

A rattlesnake coiled on a shimmering

rock

taking stock.

To attack or not?

The wound is not deep,

the poison is all we reap.

Quiet . . .

our secrets are back to sleep.

Necessary Break

This one caught my attention today while I was skimming my bookshelves. I admit I haven't read a lot of Adriennne Rich's work, but I do know the power and utter uselessness of the photograph.

"For an Album"

"Our story isn't a file of photographs
faces laughing under green leaves
or snowlit doorways, on the verge of driving
away, our story is not about women
victoriously perched on the one
sunny day of the conference,
nor lovers displaing love:

Our story is of moments
when even slow motion moved too fast
for the shutter of the camera:
words that blew our lives apart, like so,
eyes that cut and caught each other,
mime of the operating room
where gas and knives quote each other
moments before the telephone
starts ringing: our story is
how still we stood,
how fast."

-- Adrienne Rich

Another one of my favorites, Part II

I was around 20 or 21 when "Il Postino" previewed in Amarillo or was it Austin? Austin seems like the more likely place.  Regardless it was Texas. George W. Bush was governor. I had no idea who Pablo Neruda was outside of the film. I left the theater, stopped at Hastings, bought the soundtrack and listened to different celebrities read all these poems. Then when I got to work, I looked up every Neruda book there was. I used my Barnes & Noble employee discount and read them all. Still I'm hungry for more.

"Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: 'La noche esta estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos.'

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella tambien my quiso.

En las noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos.
Le bese tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo tambien la queria.
Como no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oir la noche inmensa, mas inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae el alma como al pasto el rocio.

Que importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche esta estrellada y ella no esta conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos aguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazon la busca, y ella no esta conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos arboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuanto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oido.

De otro. Sera de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo clara. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma  no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque este sea el ultimo dolor que ella me causa,
y estos sean los ultimos verso que yo le escribo."

-- Pablo Neruda from "Veinte Poemas de Amor y un Cancion Desesperada"

One of my Favorites, Part I

It was 1998 and I was living in Austin. I don't remember what kind of conference I was attending, but I remember driving to San Antonio with Sandy and I sat in this dark auditorium and watched Joy Harjo play the saxophone and read from her work. I had never heard any of it before and I loved watching her hands. I can never forget what I head and the way I heard words that night.

"I Give You Back"

"I release you, my beautiful and terrible
fear. I release you. You were my beloved
and hated twin, but now, I don't know you
as myself. I release you with all the
pain I would know at the death of
my children.

You are not my blood anymore.

I give you back to the soldiers
who burned down my home, beheaded my children,
raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters.
I give you back to those who stole the
food from our plates when we were starving.

I release you, fear, because you hold
these scenes in front of me and I was born
with eyes that can never close.

I release you
I release you
I release you
I release you

I am not afraid to be angry.
I am not afraid to rejoice.
I am not afraid to be black.
I am not afraid to be white.
I am not afraid to be hungry.
I am not afraid to be full.
I am not afraid to be hated.
I am not afraid to be loved.

I take myself back, fear.
You are not my shadow any longer.
I won't hold you in my hands.
You can't live in my eyes, my ears, my voice
my belly, or in my heart my heart
my heart   my heart

But come here, fear
I am alive and you are so afraid
                                             of dying."

-- Joy Harjo from "She Had Some Horses."

There's the Man in the Moon and There's the Rabbit in the Full Moon . . . Which do you see?

The geometry of your face


reveals a contradiction of lines and angles where
formulaic proofs collapse under the weight of your cheekbones so sharp
they betray pueblo blood old as the deserts of Chihuahua,
hard as mesquite,
beautiful as the waxy, yellow flowers
of a million nopales opening to a warm spring sunlight,
closing to a full rabbit moon. Your lines
me embrujan with words like knots too old to untie,
too brilliant to ignore.
Your raw corn stories haunt me, and I want to bring you into the rain
where your thirst will be quenched, your hunger
finally sated

This started out long and ended up quite brief . . .

Three Rounds
1.
We are the gap in our teeth –
almost there. I might swear
your hands once were serene,
offering respite from the fervor of the night
we stood thick as a swallowed sob,
solid against the ring and the blood it would bring.

2.
A knock to the jaw
and we became real as the grocery store candy I continue to steal.
Under the dingy light, your laugh
bit into the rich taste of each sustained hit.
A drop to the ground,
the clang of a bell and serenity fell.

3.
Delicate as the fine bone
of your familiar cheek, sixteen and anything but unique,
blood crystallized into sugar –
sweetened the bitter taste of innocence erased.
The law of fissure
made its first and final case; there were gloves to unlace.

I don't know about this one. I don't think I do a very good job of capturing this experience -- going to my first fight and watching my uncle get hit over and over again. I think I was four or five and I still can't get the smell of that gym out of my mind or the stickiness of the floor. Everything, the air, the floor, the lights was thick. Incomprehensibly and wordlessly thick.

Who knows the end of this?

The first time I read Homer's "The Odyssey" is lost. I know I liked its story. Penelope's tapestry, the songs of the Sirens will always be here with me. Much later, I read "The Iliad" and these words I loved even more.

"But it was shame and defilement Achilles
Had in mind for Hector. He pierced the tendons
Above the heels and cinched them with leather thongs
To his chariot, letting Hector's head drag.
He mounted, hoisted up the prize armor,
And whipped his team to a willing gallop
Across the plain. A cloud of dust rose
Where Hector was hauled, and the long black hair
Fanned out from his head, so beautiful once,
As it trailed in the dust. In this way Zeus
Delivered Hector into his enemies' hands
To be defiled in his own native land.

Watching this from the wall, Hector's mother
Tore off her shining veil and screamed,
And his old father groaned pitifully,
And all through the town the people were convulsed
With lamentation, as if Troy itself,
The whole towering city, were in flames.
They were barely able to restrain
The old man, frantic to run through the gates,
Imploring them all, rolling in the dung,
And finally making this desperate appeal:

'Please let me go, alone, to the Greek ships.
I don't care if you're worried. I want to see
If that monster will respect my age, pity me
For the sake of his own father, Peleus,
Who is about my age, old Peleus,
Who bore him and bred him to be a curse
For the Trojans, but he's caused me more pain
Than anyone, so many of my sons,
Beautiful boys, he's killed. I miss them all,
But I miss Hector more than all of them.
My grief for him will lay me in the earth.
Hector! You should have died in my arms, son!
Then we could have satisfied our sorrow,
Mourning and weeping, your mother and I."

The townsmen moaned as Priam was speaking.
Then Hecuba raised the women's lament:

"Hector, my son, I am desolate!
How can I live with suffering like this,
With you dead? You were the only hope
For Troy's men and women. They honored you
As a god when you were alive, Hector.
Now death and doom have overtaken you."

. . .

Then the old man, Priam, spoke to his people:

'Men of Troy, start bringing wood to the city,
And have no fear of an Argive ambush.
When Achilles sent me from the black ships,
He gave his word he would not trouble us
Until the twelfth day should dawn.'

He spoke and they yoked oxen and mules
To wagons, and gathered outside the city.
For nine days they hauled in loads of timber.
When the tenth dawn showed her mortal light,
They brought out their brave Hector
And all in tears lifted the body high
Onto the bier, and threw on the fire.

Light blossomed like roses in the eastern sky.

The people gathered around Hector's pyre,
And when all of Troy was assembled there
They drowned the last flames with glinting wine.
Hector's brothers and friends collected
His white bones, their cheeks flowered with tears.
They wrapped the bones in soft purple robes
And placed them in a golden casket, and laid it
In the hollow of the grave, and heaped above it
A mantle of stones. They built the tomb
Quickly, with lookouts posted all around
In case the Greeks should attack early.
When the tomb was built, they all returned
To the city and assembled for a glorious feast
In the house of Priam, Zeus' cherished king.

That was the funeral of Hector, breaker of horses."

-- Homer, The Iliad

I'll add this last note. Before anything else, there was always the name.