Dream of Oaxaca
Azoteas slumber beneath the moon,
each reflection of light a shining eye.
Look up: a million stars unblinking, solid in the air.
Hush: my shadow is the sound of eyelids
whispering across the evening's cheek.
A mascara moon casts alternate bars of light and dark.
You drowse to the mosquito's circling whine.
Bright bells and flowers adorn your nightdress;
garnet fire flows through cotton and blood;
the veins on the back of your hand draw maps;
you guide me to the land you promised.
Angel wings brush through my hair;
you gather darkness in your arms and bless me with
flowers bursting into blossom. Come:
cradled together,
let us rock ourselves to sleep.
Poema de Amor
1
We walk on tiptoe round the garden
peeling free the sunlight cloud by cloud
sometimes the heart is a sacrifice of feathers
bound with blood to an ornate altar
this rock cold against my chest
centuries of glyphs alive in your face
if our arms meet round these all too human columns
what will become of us?
Petrus: a rock, in Latin.
Piedra: a rock or stone in Spanish.
It is said that if you place your arms around one of the columns at Mitla (a central religious site for the Zapotecs), the time left for you to live is measured by the distance between your fingers as they almost touch.
2
beneath your skin the woad lies as blue as this evening sky
yellow light bends low in the house-fields below us
each pool of lamplight a warrior fallen beneath the sickle
the moon paints a delicate circle
its great round open eye stands out
above the rooftops
párpados of cloud
our teeth are diadems of whiteness
we tie shadows to our heels
and dance in triumph through street and square
Párpados: eyelids.
3
daylight bends itself round rock and turns into shadow
we flourish in blocks of fire
dreaming new selves from roots and branches
we clasp each resurrection with greedy fingers
will we watch the moon again tonight?
dark angel bodies with butterfly wings
our shadows have eloped together
we can see them sitting side by side
bumping each other's knees at a table in the zócalo
4
church bells gild the barrio's rooftops
our fingers reach to the skies and hold back light
we draw blinds to shut out the day and shadows fill us
we dream ourselves together in a silent movie
closed flesh woven from cobwebs
waiting to be opened by a slash of the tongue
the neighbour's dog watches from the azotea
he barks bright colours as dawn opens doorways on the street
can he see the flowers growing from our tangled limbs?
your fingers sew a padlock on my lips --
"Sssh! Watch the crackle of the rising sun!"
Barrio: a district or quarter of any town; in this case, La Noria.
Awakening
My ears fill up with a crackle and roar,
wave after wave of sunlight
breaking its brightness over the houses.
Blind with music, deaf with light,
I am awash in the sea surge rhythm of this surfacing sun.
My dreams have broken up like biscuits:
between my fingers a sandstorm of crumbs.
Night has flown back to his distant cave.
Light falls on the parrot's cage.
Armoured with new feathers, he clings to the bars,
and "¡Loro! ¡Loro!" he shrieks at the sky.
My vision crawls across a vellum codex.
Morning blows new colours into each corner:
red and green gods pose on each page;
I link them together with lines and arrows.
My life will never again be scarred
by their frowns and their smiles.
Loro: parrot; it is also the parrot's name (and his cry) in Spanish.
Song of Praise
He promised me moonlight in the sky at night
and cast a flat stone into heaven.
"Take care!" he said, and vanished:
a swift down a chimney, a bat into night's cave.
Crocodile held the sunshine in his mouth,
but light escaped through the gaps in his teeth:
red beams fleeing through bars of ivory.
Sunlight played on the pond's blue wave
till Monkey broke its mirror with another stone.
Then there was sunlight on mountain and rooftop.
Dogs and the valleys sung the sun's praise.
A young boy struck the church bell with a hammer.
A carpet of sound: bruised petals of metallic perfume.
Cloud People gather at the sacred cave.
Dreams
Once I stole the nose from a sacred statue
today I watch it cross the square attached to a face
Eight Deer walks past with a fanfare of conches
you can tell him by his donut with its little tail
a moving shadow and zopilote wings his way to the corner store
I caught him once on a midnight bus
he begged me to fold his wings and let him sleep forever
a gringo called Nuttall sells tins of watery soap
her children fill my days with enchanted bubbles
one four two three they are born from a magic ring
Eight Deer eight years old setting out on his conquests
Nine Wind birthing his people from a flint
or was it the magic tree in Apoala?
The voices in my head slip slowly into silence
sometimes I think they have no need of me
these dreams that come at midnight and knock at my window
Eight Deer, Tiger Claw / Ocho Venado, Garra de Tigre: a Mixtec Hero; his name is composed of two parts: (1) day name (ie the name of the day on which he was born) Eight Deer and (2) nickname Tiger Claw. His symbol in the códices is a small circle with a comma like a tiger claw.
Nuttall: the twentieth century editor of the Zouche Nuttall Codex in which Eight Deer's history of conquest is recounted.
Nine Wind / Nueve Viento: another Mixtec Hero and the founding father of the race, according to some códices.
Symbols
One Alligator was stronger than the Wind
Four Deer was faster than the Moon
Two Flint broke his heart on his mother's birthday
Three Death stood there in anguish wringing her hands
an old woman touching our minds at midnight with silver
one four two three
pigeons scatter across the square as the great bell chimes
I count the sounds but my fingers cannot recall
the order of the regiments as they marched across the cobbles
the wind draws symbols as it crosses the street
two coloured balloons
paper chasing its tiger tail
a girl blowing bubbles in a quiet corner
women walk to the zócalo to vend their carpets
Zapotecs weave them in a nearby valley
listen! you can hear them picking flowers
look! you can catch the glitter of their golden threads
Flower People
The celebrants came here to rejoice, raising their voices;
they stamped their feet to the conch's ocean roar,
thin voice of the piping sea bird, sweet surge of the throbbing drum.
The high priests picked their flowers carefully,
following an ancient magic and the rhythm of the sun.
Flower People, wave after wave of them,
hands linked, taking that last step forward
to live forever together with the sun.
A celestial scene: magic clad in organic colours;
and Monte Albán, balancing on the skyline,
stringing garlands of grecas like washing on the wind.
Who cast what net into the Atoyac and drew forth stars?
Who dreamed that final flower dance:
flesh and blood stretched over sun and stone?
A reference to humans sacrificed to the sun gods.
Grecas: Step frets The geometric patterns carved into or made out of stone.
Atoyac: The Green River which flows through Oaxaca at the foot of Monte Albá
Sun and Moon
1
last week an old man squeezed the moon
tonight she's a shrunken orange in the sky
"Tell me, Moon:
when all the stars have been caught in my net,
what will I harvest?"
silence descends a ladder of moonlight
bearing an offering of gift-wrapped stars
"Wise Old Woman who lives in the sky:
what man tore your bones apart
and gave me your face?"
dead leaves rush out through my eyes
my hands stretch out before my face
and I wash them in moonlight
"One day, I'll climb to your silver palace
and steal all your secrets."
2
Eagle paints my eyes with daylight
he offers to fly me to the sky
his feathers trap sunshine in his pinions
morning is a rebozo draped over his plumage
"My mother is blind." says Eagle.
"Her sight: cold ash in the fireplace.
Stripped of her dreams, she wanders in darkness.
You must give her the fire from your eyes!"
Tiger offers to carry me to the sky
flame speckles his pelt
his eyes are two scorched blocks of charcoal
"I will break the bread of your bones," says Tiger,
"and warm myself on the fire of your blood!"
Serpent offers to bear me to the sky
his sun scales - shards of emerald and ruby
cold is his serpent's blood
he weighs me in the twin dice of his eyes
"Where I lead you must follow." says Serpent.
"There is no other price."
3
at midnight Serpent slithers through a gap
in the fence of my dream
he slides close to my shivering body
and lies there chill against my skin
his length - a sword without a scabbard
unscaleable wall of unblemished steel
severing all warmth
"Tomorrow," he says, "I will take you to the sky.
But first, you must watch me dance."
he twists in circles winding and unwinding
infinite loops and figures of eight
endless cat's cradle of bottomless shape
sleep draws my feet deeper into quicksand
the night wind whispers me a head full of dreams
4
night without moon without stars
dark sand dropping filling my mouth
I walk the lonely bed of a dried up river
when I stumble in my dream my feet leave no footprints
colourless is my path through shadow and sand
figures of darkness are conjured before me
hollow their eyes their mouths black caverns
no flesh decks their bones
footless they sigh a sibilant song
mindless they draw in a net full of sorrows
silver fish darkling losing their sparkle
5
dusky shawl of a knitted dream wrapped round my shoulders
I pick at knots of tangled memory
a word as sharp as a stone cast at a friend
sea shells cutting naked feet at the water's edge
sunlight weeping blood over mother-of-pearl
Old Woman winds a ball of wool
she handcuffs my wrists with softness spun from lambs
my hair turns silver in her mirror
snakelike I slip around in my dream
sliding sideways into deep wells of night
6
"Wake up!" says Serpent. "Knock!"
I knock and the door springs open
Old Woman sits spinning at a ghostly wheel
she draws me to her with a string of starlight
I squirm on the fishhook of her eyes
when I blink I fall gutted to the ground
herringbones knit me a tangled destiny
lost people wandering in a tapestry of dreams
as I read my story in the sky around me
Moon scythes my heart into tiny slices
a fishbone slides stitches into my side
dice click!
two red snake eyes stare into my eyes
7
Old Woman weaves a crinoline from stars
she plucks roses from nothingness and turns them into haloes
nochebuena blossoms on the perfume of her breath
the cardinal's song is a crimson voice hidden among leaves
mercurial in the moonlight Old Woman coils her relentless cage
one by one the cardinal's tunes are imprisoned
a butterfly impaled on a moonbeam
the last note of his song
8
draped across night's blackboard
stars and constellations all erased
my black angel bruised by the dark
the world's feathered wonder reduced to shadow and ash
what dreams are these?
feathers against night's window
an angel of darkness descending a steep stairway
tumbling through the night
whose dreams are these?
9
Old Woman walks within a cloister of stars
the heavens arched above her like a peacock's tail
she chants the garland of her rosary
pearls she sheds from her cratered eyes
stringing them like counters across night's throat
beauty she calls forth
beauty fresh and youth renewed
flushed with virgin pride
she steps into her jewelled boat
and sails across a sea of crystalline sky
she enfolds the cardinal's wings in a cage of moonbeams
"Sing!" she whispers
she rocks a new born baby in her arms
the night is hushed with lullabies
10
Sun thrusts his fierce face through night's dark window
his voice booms out like a golden gong
"What have you done with my child?"
curled and flaming his orange corona
head lucent with a coronet of radiance and fire
his eyes sweep night beneath day's rug
New Moon pales and fades in a corner
Serpent escapes through a crack in the wall
11
nochebuena - a star spreading crimson fire
girasol - bright mirror to his golden face
colibri - hovering on a whirr of wings
am I less than a flower or a bird?
if my fingers could grow feathers...
if my face could sprout petals and leaves...
hollow bones whistle a sad song
the sailor lost at sea
the wanderer asleep in foreign soil
both far from home
Nochebuena / Poinsettia; girasol / sunflower; colibri / humming bird.
Gringos
They do not see the things we see;
our clay is rough beneath their fingers.
Sad clouds sail over their heads: this way, that way;
they know not where the clouds are going, nor whence they came.
Birds chatter in the trees, but to them they're just birds:
small birds, brown birds, black birds, yellow birds, song birds.
They cannot put myth or name to bird;
nor can they recognize this food we eat,
nor the people we meet,
nor the sacred places to which we go:
guajalote, sánate, tianguis,
tecolote, apoala, yanhuitlan,
cuauhtémoc, oaxaca, tlacochahuaya,
yucuñudahui, yuco yoco, nochixtlan,
ilhuixóchitl, macuixóchitl,
huajapan, cuilapan,
zopilote.