Día de los Muertos 2020Max and his uncle Joedeath’s many signatures in Sicily’s quicksilver seas the moon and its argent micronauts uncounted in the recesses of Sierra Madre actors with faces of timeless burros named Cárdenas foraging in sugar cane coldness at the center of the sun seventeen years or forty-nine years the instant is the same for whatever happens the body is only the thought of the body incense and wharves of the conquistadores liana and ivy snares at the hour’s second end how often this occurs and cannot recall the why and which the who and wherefore the canals of Tenochtitlán lose their way among withered rooftop garlands I remember nothing after pushing the green button but salutes of armless angels the rose through which a river pours and summers that belong to memory’s only syllable and heat the roar of Aetna’s ovens twenty marigold flowers Narcissus and Hyacinth eye and pulp of repercussion blindness of water and depths where night’s riddle threads an unheard harp calacas y calaveras ! thousands at play with missing fingers nameless deities in a single afternoon making rosaries of light smoke snaking through vowels of perpetuity toys that imitate sleep’s small noises tender the hair that falls around the wing shimmering hues of nacre consonants why is speech so difficult today ? colibrí ! ruby-throated messenger of death clouds the size of silence and glass motion and gravity have lost all sense evening fades in the vestibule of echo one hand seeks the other in an abyss of shape darkness of words dos mariposas de la noche ! 11-01-20 ![]() Ivan Argüelles is a Mexican American innovative poet whose work moves from early Beat and surrealist-influenced forms to later epic-length poems. He received the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award in 1989 as well as the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award in 2010. In 2013, Argüelles received the Before Columbus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Por/by Rafael Jesús González 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. 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. Note: Mictlan is the Nahua people’s name for the land of the dead. Rafael Jesús González is a poet and essayist, known worldwide for his writings and efforts to promote peace and justice. © Rafael Jesús González 2018. |
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