Tato Laviera's new book

review (excerpt)of Tato Laveria's book by Rigoberto González, The El Paso Times:

"Language is not the only way politics manifests in 'Mixturao.' So is the call to action to the Puerto Rican community that enriches this country, linguistically and otherwise.

'Carpetas in Your Dossier' issues a warning about the gentrification 'targeting our cultural centers,' and 'Consignas in Brutality' invites everyone to speak up about abuses against the people: 'no justice, no peace, el silencio nos mata aquí.' Particularly touching is Laviera's 'Southwest Border Trucos,' in which he acknowledges the growing Mexican population of New York:

When you see mexicanos ilegales

Selling fruits and flowers in all kinds of weather

Bow your head

To a formidable free nation

To a great Latino people

To a great Hispano nation

La voz de Aztlán speaking in deed!"

Poetry: A Moment in History
by Nancy Lorenza Green



The tall
Black man
steps
into
the light
...



Nancy Lorenza Green, M.Ed. is an Afro-Chicana performance and recording artist from El Paso and Cd. Juarez who uses poetry, percussion instruments and flute music as mediums of communication and cultural expression. Nancy has recorded three cds: Music From the Heart, Life Is Sacred, and a Tumblewords poetry compilation. Her poetry has been published in Border Senses, Chrysalis, Newspaper Tree, and Mujeres de Maíz Zine 5& 6. Nancy is the recipient of the 2006 Art & Entertainment Hispanos Triunfadores award and the 1999 Que Bonita Familia Homenaje a la Mujer award.

* * *

Las oraciones son los hilos y el tejido es la aparicion de la luz.


* * *


Prayers are threads and weaving is the birth of light.


* * *

by José Lezama Lima




quoted in Cecilia Vicuña's Unravelling Words & the Weaving of Water

obama visiting us here in deep south tejas~borderlands, feb. 2008. texas might be a red state, but our borderlands are blue.

"Es el mundo
el que quema (y no el sol)
el que lava..."





"It's the world
that burns (and not the sun)
that cleanses..."




from Septiembre
by Dolores Dorantes
translated by Jen Hofer

"Seeds from before
the time of Christ"






from "History" by Demetria Martínez in Breathing between the Lines

"Massive fire turned a perilous trek deadly for border crossers"

Click on video "The Fire Within". Here is the link to the article: “On his way up Tecate Peak with six other migrants, Ramirez had stopped to pray at a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. But soon after they climbed over the border fence that Sunday, a Santa Ana blew in from the east, and they saw an orange glow rise up from the horizon. Flames raced toward them on 80-mph winds and the 'coyote' they'd hired to guide them into the United States took off, leaving them to face a blaze that was chewing up chaparral like a wild beast.”

from "Massive fire turned a perilous trek deadly for border crossers" in the LA Times.

joy harjo reading

*at 20:20 she plays a "traditional lakota women's love song" and then reads the poem "the myth of blackbirds," a poem from the woman who fell from the sky

lila downs

"The heavenly things ignite and freeze."




from "We Manage Most When We Manage Small" by Linda Gregg from Too Bright to See

"One day I dyed a baby goat bright red
with my red berries, just to see
something a little different."



from "Crusoe in England"
by Elizabeth Bishop

Emplumada

One of my favorite poems, ever: "Emplumada" by Lorna Dee Cervantes:

"When summer ended
the leaves of snapdragons withered
taking their shrill-colored mouths with them.
They were still, so quiet. They were
violet where umber now is. She hated
and she hated to see
them go. Flowers..."

(click link to read on)

The Sun Lights Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá

Autumnal Equinox (today)

Mayan brilliance

Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá

"...The pyramid is unique among all known pyramids, worldwide, for its central role in a dramatic shadow and light display during the equinoxes. At the appointed hour, the setting sun casts a shadow of a serpent writhing down the northern steps of the pyramid. The sunlight bathes the western balustrade of the pyramid's main stairway and causes seven isosceles triangles to form, imitating the body of a serpent 37 yards long that creeps downwards until it joins the huge serpent's head carved in stone at the bottom of the stairway."

official last day of summer

This year's summer solstice began on June 20th. This year's fall equinox: Sept. 22nd.

...2008...
VERNAL EQUINOX.....(SPRING) MAR 20 2008 148 AM EDT - 0548 UTC

SUMMER SOLSTICE....(SUMMER) JUN 20 2008 759 PM EDT - 2359 UTC

AUTUMNAL EQUINOX...(FALL) SEP 22 2008 1144 AM EDT - 1544 UTC

WINTER SOLSTICE....(WINTER) DEC 21 2008 704 AM EST - 1204 UTC

RIP, Mahmoud Darwish

One square meter of prison

It's the door, and beyond it is the paradise of the heart. Our things—and everything is ours—are interchangeable. And the door is a door, the door of metonymy, the door of legend. A door to keep September gentle. A door that invites fields to begin their wheat. The door has no door, yet I can go into my outside and love both what I see and what I do not see. All of these wonders and beauties are on earth—there—and yet the door has no door? My prison cell accepts no light except into myself. Peace be unto me. Peace be unto the sound barrier. I wrote ten poems to eulogize my freedom, here and there. I love the particles of sky that slip through the skylight—a meter of light where horses race. And I love my mother's little things, the aroma of coffee in her dress when she opens the door of day to her flocks of hens. I love the fields between Autumn and Winter, the children of our prison guard, and the magazines displayed on a distant sidewalk. I also wrote twenty satiric poems about the place in which we have no place. My freedom is not to be what they want, but to enlarge my prison cell, and carry on my song of the door. A door is a door, yet I can walk out within me, and so on and so forth.


by Mahmoud Darwish
in translation
from Unfortunately, It Was Paradise

green parakeets

I love the green parakeets in the RGValley. I love hearing them flying past in small squawking groups. Listen

* * *

"We're tying down the house that cost us an eye from the face (to build)," said fisherman José Manuel Callejas, 46, standing on the stairs to his wooden house on stilts.

"I've been here thirty years and I know how these things play out," said fisher Lázaro Osorio, 61, citing a familiar local saying: "It's better to say this is the place he ran from than to say this is the place where he ended up."

After working all day to get the house ready for Hurricane Dolly, I'm tired. And worried. My first hurricane. Worried about flooding more than anything. Worried about those who live closer to the gulf, and those who live near the levees. Worried about the folks transported from the immigration detention centers. Worried that papeles are still important during disastrous times. Upset that the fed. gov. started working on the border wall this week instead of doing more to help us survive. Worried that the shelters being set up in town do not allow pets. Worried about projectiles flying through windows. Worried about those with infants. Worried about the elderly. Worried about those with few family members nearby. Happy to see neighbors joking today, at the sandbag station. A sense of comraderie as we filled our sandbags. Someone said, "Hello, Dolly!" and joked that the exercise in the heat was working off the big hamburger he ate. The RG Valley was alive today with activity. I can see now why people stock up on cerveza and party along with the storm. Now it is quiet. It's still quiet here. The rain is coming and the wind--soon. Before it got dark, the sky was pink, a pink I've never seen or noticed before. A slight flush, fever before the storm. It was hot today. I brought in all my lawn furniture and a few creepy crawlies came in too. I thought, should I save the fly that wants to come in with me or wave it outside? The bird (sparrow?) nest under the porch was just rebuilt this week after knocked down by wind. It will be the first to go. I heard a few green parakeets squawk by before sundown. I am impressed with everyone working together today. At the same time, I did not like how a woman opened her car door at the HEB that slammed into my car and didn't even say sorry. Just kind of looked my way for a second. And then proceeded to walk into HEB, fixing her hair. It wasn't even windy yet. Not one bit of wind. I'm in the outer bands, I believe. I send a prayer to the universe for all who are closer to more flooding and more struggle and hope all make it through this. I grew up in Cali, and don't fear earthquakes. But I fear hurricanes (and tornadoes... thought about The Wizard of Oz today... yes, the early evening sky felt like that eery and strangely fascinating technicolor); the unknown. Peace.

"The federal government was to begin this week constructing the first part of the new border fence in Hidalgo County. While project supervisors met with emergency officials about the storm, large cranes unloaded steel beams and other supplies at a staging area near the levee Monday. Concrete walls will be incorporated into the river side of the levees to keep floodwaters, illegal immigrants and smugglers out."

Hurricane season. Hurricane Dolly. The Rio Grande Valley in deep South Texas. The border wall construction. The levees. Construction of the wall halted for the time being. But when the storm blows over, construction will start again. This border wall horrible, horrible, horrible. And now, added to the list of why it is so obviously horrible: the future safety of millions who live here, one of the poorest counties in the nation. Hurricane warnings and with levees in need of repair.

I'm building my little boat in preparation for the tropical storm, possibly a hurricane. Can still cross the Rio Grande~Bravo.

"when the herd returns
we'll be asking for peace,
we'll be asking for a blessing,
we'll be making peace with our mothers,
when the herd returns
...
we'll share our bounty with those who didn't plant,
we'll eliminate poverty and hunger,
when the herd returns
we'll live with less,
...
we'll be singing to bring rain,
singing to heal our grief
singing to the moon.
..."



from "On the Wing" by Margo Tamez from Naked Wanting (University of Arizona Press 2003).

"The Río is called Bravo"

"The Río is called Bravo
because of the walking Pirañas
that patrol along
the steel laced fence."

from "Río Grande" by José Antonio Burciaga