I am your water; I am your air

Whatever you are doing, it is not important. What is important is Pintando una Canción. Go to it now. Let it load. Thank me later.

You're still here? You want more information, you say? The music artist goes by the name of Labuat, and the song title is "Soy tu aire" ("I am your air"). The visual artist is you.

Class dismissed.

Holy Water.

In these thirsty times, it comes to my mind again
like the dying echoes of day in these halls holy:
that squalid afternoon the silent Indian,
a young girl, entered this hushed cathedral
to sip from the Spanish priest’s blesséd water,
sated, maybe, at the tiny oasis in this unforgiving desert

of mercy. Condemning the girl to her native desert
fate, the parish priest pointed, furious, and again
made his sign over the ornate font of water
to make it respectable and holy
for genteel believers. Outside the cathedral,
in the godforsaken square, obsidian Indian

eyes radiated from under blowing wisps of ebony Indian
hair. The girl whispered in strange desert
tongues, and her words fell on the cathedral
as if the rain had come again
from the heavens so contemptuous and holy,
but there came no clouds bearing precious water,

so the priest continued to obsess. Over the tub of water
he cursed that uncouth girl, that beastly Indian,
who, like all of her kind, blighted the holy
places the missionaries had bestowed upon the desert
and unceremoniously profaned their benefactions. Again
the priest dreamt of pure blood filling the cathedral

with proper Latin veneration, as deserves a cathedral
graced by grandsons of conquistadors from over the water.
With each passing year, I have found myself wondering again
about the girl who spoke with nothing but a fierce Indian
grace. I have tried to imagine the dusty desert
paths she has since dignified with her presence so holy.

She is my sun-red rose in a bleached-bone field wholly
populated by upstart weeds that built up their cathedral
of thorns against the ancient, sacred desert
and dared to deem themselves the true priests of water–
yes, on these days I reflect on the miracle of the Indian
and whether she will ever sanctify our streets again.

It is then that I realize that the desert long ago swallowed the girl and our water
as if they had been a mirage, and the twin Babel towers of our holy cathedral
stand only to testify my prophesy: my angelic Indian will not come to cleanse us again.



I wrote this for my creative writing class and edited with much help from Ian and Christine. The form is called a sestina, which dictates the sestet/envoy form as well as the pattern of the end words of the lines. It was inspired by my short time in Chihuahua, MX, where very young Indian girls begged in the rich shopping district. The rich Latinos (those with more Spanish blood) ignored them.

Al fin.

For my faithful would-be readers, a poem that you cannot read. Irony abounds.


Las rosas marchitan.
Mi abuela los vigila;
Sabe marchitar.

<<La muerte de las rosas,>>
Está dejando.

Mi arrugita,
Reducida por silla
De las ruedas

Y lagrimas
Y edad
Y muerte

Al fin.



Translation:

The roses wither./ My grandmother watches over them;/ She knows how to wither.

"I hate to see/ the roses' death,"/ She is saying.

My little wrinkle,/Reduced to [or by] the chair/ of wheels

And tears/ And age/ And death

To the end [or "finally"; literally, "at the end"].

Del Olor de Elotes, O, En Que La Vida Me Transforma.

The post will be in English for all you English-speaking imaginary readers.


In the spring of my senior year of high school, I went on a mission trip to Chihuahua, Mexico. Before I continue, allow me to say that this was no kind of proselytizing mission; my companions and I went merely to help fellow members of the same denomination. The matter of my distaste for evangelicals is best saved for another (or several other) post(s). Chihuahua City (Ciudad de Chihuahua), where we stayed and from whence we traveled daily to the mountain mining town of Aquiles Serdan (Santa Eulalia), was a bustling Place of Interest.

The stores within a mere three blocks of our downtown hotel ranged from street vendors of every kind to flea markets hawking fake Pumas to Pizza Huts and Subways; each socio-economic class (i.e., the very rich and the very poor) had its own set of shopping places. For the Rich, a wide, tree-lined walking mall edged with store after store of expensive, Americanized goods; it was a task to find a shirt with Spanish instead of English writing. The Poor made but small forays into this area: small herds of tiny Indian girls and a legless man begged, a woman sold small bags of pumpkin seeds, and an ancient guitarist strummed tunelessly for coinage. The Rich cared little. As I watched, a well-dressed woman snatched a handful of seeds from the destitute street vendor. She could easily have paid the few pesos asked, but she unabashedly took from the other woman's livelihood. I've rarely been more disgusted.

My favorite place within the Ciudad was, and is, the dirty, scum-covered area inhabited by swarming masses of buyers and sellers and lookers-on. Colors, smells, and sounds filled the air, and the sidewalks and streets are crowded with people moving in every direction.

Those in automobiles for once have to bow to the whim of those on foot.
If you don't want to be near people who are of a different class than you, you should to stay out.
Want something high class, flashy? Good luck.
If you're hungry for something other than Elotes, you can go somewhere else.

There is no avoiding your fellow man here. I find that some people hate that.