We invite you, our members and website viewers, to join our Board of Directors and staff in contributing a poem or two to add to this archive of literature for all to enjoy. Please send your submission to Kenn Watt at Programs@nmhumanities.org and thank you for sharing something inspiring and thoughtful at a time we all need it most!
From Poet, Writer and longtime amigo Nasario Garcia dedicated his bilingual poem DOÑA CLARITA to Rudy Anaya, which comes from his Bolitas de oro: Poems of My Marble-Playing Days.
DOÑA CLARITA
Para Rudolfo A. Anaya
Doña Clarita
de mi placita
curandera mentada
y conocida
desde Santa Clara
a Casa Salazar
sabía cómo curar.
No había remedio
que no tuviera
o enfermedad
que no curara.
Ya fuera dolor de espalda,
estómago o cintura,
ella lo curaba
con gran finura.
De todos lugares
y lugarcitos
iba la gente
con sus penares
y regalitos
de caridad.
Volvían a casa
a sus altares
dando gracias
a doña Clarita
cuyo don de curandera
por Dios donado
los había sanado
de su malestar.
DOÑA CLARITA
For Rudolfo A. Anaya
Doña Clarita
from my village
renowned and noted
folk healer
all the way from
Santa Clara
to Casa Salazar
knew how to heal people.
There was nary a remedy
she did not possess
or an illness
she could not cure.
Whether it was shoulder pain,
stomach or backaches
she cured each one
with self-assurance.
From large
to tiny places
people went
with their ailments
and modest gifts
of charity.
They’d return home
to their altars
giving thanks
to Doña Clarita
whose gift as a folk healer
bequeathed by God
had cured them
of their malady.
From Elva Osterreich - Advice from La Llorona BY DEBORAH A. MIRANDA —a found poem Each grief has its unique side. Choose the one that appeals to you. Go gently. Your body needs energy to repair the amputation. Humor phantom pain. Your brain cells are soaked with salt; connections fail unexpectedly and often. Ask for help. Accept help. Read your grief like the daily newspaper: headlines may have information you need. Scream. Drop-kick the garbage can across the street. Don’t feel guilty if you have a good time. Don’t act as if you haven’t been hit by a Mack Truck. Do things a little differently but don’t make a lot of changes. Revel in contradiction. Talk to the person who died. Give her a piece of your mind. Try to touch someone at least once a day. Approach grief with determination. Pretend the finish line doesn’t keep receding. Lean into the pain. You can’t outrun it.
- From Board Member Miriam Langer:
The day, with all its pain ahead, is yours
By Derek Walcott
The day, with all its pain ahead, is yours.
The ceaseless creasing of the morning sea,
the fluttering gamboge cedar leaves allegro,
the rods of the yawning branches trolling in the breeze,
the rusted meadows, the wind-whitened grass,
the coos of the stone-colored ground doves on the road,
the echo of benediction on a house—
its rooms of pain, its verandah of remorse
when joy lanced through its open-hearted doors
like a hummingbird out to the garden and the pool
in which the sky has fallen. These are all yours,
and pain has made them brighter as absence does
after a death, as the light heals the grass.
And the twig-brown lizard scuttles up its branch
like fingers on the struts of a guitar.
I hear the detonations of agave
the stuttering outburstsof bougainvillea,
I see the acacia’s bonfire, the begonia’s bayonets,
and the tamarind’s thorns and the broadsides of clouds from the calabash
and the cedars fluttering their white flags of surrender
and the flame trees’ siege of the fort.
I saw black bulls, horns lowered, galloping, goring the mist
that rose, unshrouding the hillocks of Santa Cruz
and the olives of Esperanza
Andalusian idyll, and answer
and the moon’s blank tambourine
and the drizzle’s guitars
and the sunlit wires of the rain
the shawls and the used stars
and the ruined fountains.
from Lucy Silva, Program Assistant:
You Carry All the Ingredients
by Hafiz:
You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare -
Don't mix them!
You have all the genius
To build a swing in your backyard
for God.
That sounds
like a hell of a lot more fun.
Let's start laughing, drawing blueprints,
gathering our talented friends.
I will help you
with my divine lyre and drum.
Hafiz
will sing a thousand words
you can take into your hands,
like golden saws
silver hammers,
polished teakwood,
strong silk rope.
You carry all the ingredients
to turn your existence into joy,
Mix them, mix them!
from Rosalie Otero, Board Member:
Woodstove of My Childhood
by Levi Romero-
woodstove of my childhood
where potatoes cut like triangle chips were fried
in manteca de marrano
woodstove of lazy autumn smoke swirling away
to nowhere
woodstove of December
evacuating the cold chill at sunrise
woodstove of celebration and mourning
of post-World War II Korea y Vietnam
woodstove corner that kept vigil over
drunken nodding remembrance
woodstove corner where uncles primos compadres
gathered on visits from Califas
woodstove corner with a warm ear for nostalgia
where Mama Ane stirred the atole and wrung her hands
thumb over thumb praying for her children's children's children
woodstove that witnessed six decades washing its face at the vandeja
that saw western swing dancing in dim lantern flame
that watched Elvis come in from across the llano strumming
a mail-order Stella and singing in Spanish
woodstove
of the feast lamb tied up under the crabapple tree
of early sour cherries ripening above the cornstalk horizon
of neighbors bartering a cup of sugar
in exchange for mitote and conversation
woodstove that witnessed six decades washing its face at the vandeja
that saw western swing dancing in dim lantern flame
that watched Elvis come in from across the llano strumming
a mail-order Stella and singing in Spanish
woodstove of rain tenderly pouring into the afternoon
and salt sprinkling onto the patio from the mouth of the porch
woodstove of the nighttime crackling softly
of harmonious harmonica medleys
blowing before bedtime prayer
woodstove of rain tenderly pouring into the afternoon
and salt sprinkling onto the patio from the mouth of the porch
woodstove of the nighttime crackling softly
of harmonious harmonica medleys
blowing before bedtime prayer
woodstove facing John F. Kennedy's
picture on the wall
woodstove of Protestant Sundays
ringing without bells
woodstove of dark earth
fat worms and acequias
woodstove of 1960s propaganda
and all the rich hippies knocking poorly at the screen door
woodstove of private crazy laughter
of woodpeckers pecking through rough-hewn
barn timbers only to meet the sky
of rabbits nervously nibbling evening away
in the arroyo
of the water bucket banging and splashing
all the way home
woodstove of the water drop sizzle
of buñuelos and biscochitos and flour on the chin
of chokecherry jam dropping out
from the end of a tortilla
woodstove
that heard Mentorcito's violin bringing in the new year
that saw Tío Eliseo bring in an armload of wood
that heard Tío Antonio coming down the road
whistling a corrido and swinging his cane
woodstove of the blessed noontime
and Grandma Juanita heating up the caldito
woodstove of the sanctified and untamed holy spirit
of the dream awake dreamers
prophesizing in the beginning how the end would come
of creaking trochil gates left open forever
of twisted caved-in gallineros rocking
in weeping April wind
of abandoned orchards waist deep
in desánimo
of teardrops that held back the laughter
of the penitente procession moving through the hills
for the soul of the village
woodstove of the wounded faithful proudly
concealing their scars
woodstove of armpit farts and bedtime giggles
of pitchforks and axes under the bed in case of intruders
of coffee cans filled with everything but coffee
of ten cents for a cream soda at Corrina's
of strawberry Nehis and a bag of chili chips at Medina's
of a handful of bubble gum acá Santos's
woodstove of genius wisdom dressed up as the village idiot
of hand-me-down stories locked away
in the dispensa
of bien loco local heroes cracking homeruns
Saturday afternoons en la cañada
woodstove
of all that and more of all that disappearing
as children played hide 'n' seek in that abandoned goodtime feeling
while stumbling on the footsteps of tradition
woodstove that heard the fall of a people rising in silence
that died of a loneliness without cure
that cured itself in the company
of the so many more lonely
woodstove of my childhood
4 Jun 2020
"Muertos de Hambre" (English version "Losers" by Elio González & Rubén Tejerina)
Este video realizado por realizado por Elio González y Rubén Tejerina; resultó ser la inspiración para el programa del Concurso al Desempeño Artístico del Año 2016 conocido también como los Eddie Wharez® Awards en la ciudad de Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, México.
This video, the work of Elio González & Rubén Tejerina, was the inspiration this year for the Contest for the Outstanding Artistic Performance of the Year 2016, also known as the Eddie Wharez® Awards, Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico, a fishing town know as Rocky Point as well.