Lost Legends Triptych: Sonnet III

A beira do amplo rio inacabável,
deliravam soldados acabados:
numa beligerância formidável,
caiam os companheiros flechados.

Mas a força guerreira inexorável,
eram mulheres de seios cortados?
De cabelo longo e rosto implacável,
as Amazonas de arcos alongados?

Viram o que viram, ou o que quiseram?
Desvairaram, inventaram, fizeram?
Todos levamos, como com cadeia,

o que não podemos deixar de ver,
o que não devemos deixar de crer:
o Colombo atônito ante a sereia.

Lost Legends Triptych: Sonnet II

Escondida está la ciudad dorada,
sus tesoros envueltos en maraña.
Los fieles locales guardan con saña
su secreto, cual súplica sagrada.

Quien encuentre la entrada deseada
tendrá que dominar fuerza con maña:
el cacique, que en su lago se baña,
a sus guerreros manda a la emboscada.

Y El Dorado zambulle entre destellos
de su antiguo museo sumergido.
Sus riquezas son los reflejos bellos

de lo que los iberos no han intuido:
que en vez de espadas clavar en poblados,
hubieran aprendido a echar clavados.

Lost Legends Triptych: Sonnet I

Of youth the fountain Spaniards sought in vain,
its spurting plumes imagined, jets of froth,
crystalline showers of nourishing broth,
miraculous relief from age and pain.

Perhaps the font, difficult to obtain,
surged hidden from a swamp or barren swath.
Would it be wont to bathe bereft of cloth,
or only drops upon the tongue to rain?

The puzzle ground down into sterile loam.
The searchers were not used to giving up.
Had they but thought to make by hand the foam,

upon its form to ponder and to sup,
then youth had sprung from joyful font of bone,
its essence to imbibe from rustic cup.

Brachiation

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

or what's a heaven for?"

Robert Browning

                              From branch
to branch
                 and on to vine,
                        from vine     to vine     on down    the line
and then to branch again,        to swing
                and sway with grace      from limb     
         to limb:
it's this I miss when in the hall
I walk from end to end and all
that I can do is walk, not swing:
there are no bars from which to limb-
erly sashay and sway along.
Is it because our arms aren't strong
that we neglect to hang such rails?
Is it the length the swing entails?
But practice would make stronger arms
and maybe even longer arms.
Perhaps to grow prehensile tails
                   like spider monkey as he sails
                                      from hand          to foot
                                                                            to tail
                       to hand
to foot is what we're missing, and
to mark some lanes, so those who want
to swing won't crash with those who jaunt,
and sporting satchels as we swing,
to hold those things we need to bring.
To my mind, we must act with haste!
I feel my muscles go to waste
each time I venture down the hall.
But, do palms have the wherewithal
to callus around like clocks' ticks?
Would that tail sprout from my coccyx?
Would my spine find relief someday
from all those popping vertebrae?
It may be that I'll never know.
The reach above my head grows, though:
imagination is my fate
until I
             grasp
                                              to brachiate.

Pulpos enchipotlados

Pulpos enchipotlados pidió, encabronado, Chimalpopoca, el monarca mexica.

"A poco," protestó Popocacuitlahuac, procurador culinario del palacio plenipotenciario.

De puro coraje, Popocacuitlahuac se encomendó a Tezcatlipoca, y se puso como cohete a correr camino a Quiahuiztlan, pasando por Popocatépetl con mucha prisa pero con poca convicción. Por allá por Coatepec a poco se encharca en el chapopote del camino polvoriento. Por fin en Coatzacoalcos pudo calar la choza de un pescador a quien le propuso la chamba del capricho de Chimalpopoca.

"Poca...Coatlicue," profirió el pescador coatzacoalquense al apoderarse del encargo. Pero a los pocos pudo producir los pulpos provenidos de las profundidades.

"Y, ¿me presta un poquito de chipotle?" preguntó Popocacuitlahuac.

"En Papantla puede que compartan, pero no se ponga a platicar como perico al componer conversación con los totonaco-parlantes, porque ni popolucas ni popolocas, pues."

Por poco que parezca, al comparecer Popocacuitlahuac en aquel pueblo pintoresco, se percató de que algún que otro totonaco se echaba sus comentarios en náhuatl.  

Propuso un totonaco chipotlero, "Por una pizquita de pulpo te proporciono el poco conocido pero palpablemente codiciado chipotle marca Panchito Chapopote de la casa Xavier Icaza."

"Propuesta concordada," manifestó Popocacuitlahuac, pellizcando un cachito de pulpo. 

Apresurado paseó Popocacuitlahuac nuevamente por las calzadas y los canales de la capital de Anahuac, hasta ponerse a los pies del tlatoani Chimalpopoca.

Ante toda la corte chismeó Chimalpopoca, "Ya se me pasó el poco antojo que me picó por el aperitivo. Además, Popocacuitlahuac, tienes cara de enchocolatado. Te has de haber tropezado por allá por Perote, porque estos pulpos enchipotlados están enchapopotlados."

A la postre, y como castigo, a Popocacuitlahuac lo pintaron por completo de chapopote enchipotlado, causándole un escozor poco cómodo.

Colorín colorado, este cuento se ha enchipotlado.

a alma rendida

o que é que é essa coisa chamada de multiculturalismo?

um sustantivo insustentável.

paira um fio, e outro, e mais outro,

no limiar de uma teia de aranha.
os fios se agitam, de cores apenas visíveis.

a luz não passa: habita.

transcende

porque não há o que passar.

eis o perigo de manter a alma aberta,

de esticá-la além do sei lá:

o paradoxo de sentir cada vapor do vento

sem resistir ser parte do ar.

o que é que é essa tentativa de definir

uma idéia tão intangível

quanto o multiculturalismo

quando sentido, vivido,

no limiar que é uma teia de aranha?

aliás faz tempo 

a aranha, 
fonte das cores enfiadas,
desistiu

e se foi

muito

embora.

Exvotos por doquier

Las muelas de juicio

da la Facultad de Derecho

duelen con más juicio 

que las de la Facultad de Siniestro.

El meñique le chismea al pulgar

y salta tres dedos para retomar su lugar.

El pezón oprimido quiso levantarse en protesta.

El pezón lamido pudo levantarse por placer.

Truena el tobillo,

no sin antes caer

el relámpiego.

Osa la mano
manosear

la nalga o el seno,

oh, cuando ostentados,
porque diseñados

para ser manoseados.

  Piel: pergamino peludo de pliegues, perforaciones, y protuberancias.

Los ojos son los pozos del espíritu.

Ventanas del alma, ¡mis narices!

Vuelve la vulva de su viaje en barco

--el constante meneo, la marea de sal--

hecha concha que resuena con el rumor del mar.

Regalo del descanso

es el regazo

y el que más lo disfruta

lo ocupa desde el embarazo.

¿Mejilla o cachete?
Pues no es lo mismo mejillón que cachetón.

Los penes, la mayoría del tiempo, cuelgan bajo la raya, como comas, de tipografía diversa, pero a veces, en casos de turgencia, se convierten en puntos, ¡de admiración!

El perineo marca la frontera

entre la pompa francesa 

y la nalga española.

Una uña luna

se torna sol

con brillo

de esmalte.

  

De San Francisco de Sales el votivo 

está hecho de cerilla del oído.

"Erase un hombre a una nariz pegado,"

escribió Quevedo,

que era un hombre a unos lentes pegado.

¿Reloj de sol?

Cualquier extremidad despejada.

¡AuXilio! ¡La aXila está asfiXiada de antioXidante!

La vitamina D es nudo

del sol con el desnudo. 

Más exvotos aquí y aquí.

Angeles de nieve

¿Angeles de nieve? ¡Angeles de nieve!

Dios mío, ¿qué diablos son

los ángeles de nieve?

¿Son como aquellos hombres de nieve,

hechos bolas, que vi en pantalla?

No, hijo mío. El angel de nieve

lo haces bien acostadito en la nieve,

viendo hacia el cielo,

y moviéndote las extremidades

como el vitruviano desvestido de Da Vinci,

como el náufrago enamorado de Neruda.

Esos artistas entendieron que el angel

es la impresión que dejas

sobre la faz de la tierra.

Mide el tamaño de tu alcance

y el tiempo de tu aguante.

Cuando sale el sol, se derrite la imagen

pero no el recuerdo de tu impresión,

de tus capacidades y de tus anhelos alados.

¡El frío que haría, Dios mío!

¡Angeles de arena, ángeles de arena!

Aquí en los trópicos: ¿se puede?

Sí, hijo, también. Sí se puede.

(Este poema, encomendado por Luis Moreno, aparece también en su blog de poesía de ángeles.)

Huehuetlatolli

Nos dio mucho gusto estar con Uds. Uds. nos recibieron y nos llevaron a su casa, y allá comimos y dormimos, y pasamos mucho tiempo con Uds. Gracias, hijita, gracias, porque nos dio mucho gusto estar con Uds. Lo pasamos muy bien con Uds. allá en su casa.

Escuché estas palabras, que mi suegro le decía a mi hija, en una sala de espera en el aeropuerto de Dallas. Mis suegros regresaban a México, después de haber pasado unas semanas con nosotros en Oklahoma. Como digo, escuché estas palabras con compasión, reconociendo como siempre la voz de mi suegro y su manera de hablar.

Pero de repente pensé en la categoría de discursos nahuas que se llaman huehuetlatolli, o "discursos de los ancianos." Me di cuenta de que mi suegro, con sus setenta años y su apellido náhuatl, y a pesar de su Alzheimer's, estaba en ese momento incorporando aquella tradición mesoamericana.

Y pensé: no es exageración. Esos discursos se memorizaban, se pasaban de padres a hijos para ser recitados en eventos especiales, tales como despedidas y bienvenidas, la mayoría de edad, la encomendación antes de una batalla, etc. Eran, y son, discursos que destacan lo formulaico de la retórica náhuatl, con sus difrasismos, paralelismos, y repeticiones típicas de un idioma más hablado que escrito.

Pensé en otras ocasiones en las que había yo presenciado los huehuetlatolli de mi suegro quien, por ser el mayor de siete hijos, tal vez heredó ese estilo: cuando le pedí la mano de su hija en matrimonio (¡el "rollo" que nos echó aquella tarde!); los varios brindis de Año Nuevo y otros eventos por el estilo; las presentaciones formales, que había tenido que traducir yo, ante mis parientes.

Y sin duda, con los siglos y con el idioma castellano se han modificado los huehuetlatolli. Y tal vez mi suegro incorpora la tradición menos por práctica familiar que por el estilo general del habla mexicano (aunque creo más bien que importan los dos factores por igual). Pero afirmo que eso fue lo que reconocí en las palabras de mi suegro, que le seguía hablando a mi hija:

Qué bueno que pudimos jugar juntos, y bailar juntos. Escuchamos mucha música. ¡Tú bailas muy bien! Por eso vinimos tu abuelita y yo, para jugar con Uds. y bailar con Uds. Por eso nos gusta venir a estar con Uds, contigo y con tu hermanita y con tu papá y tu mamá. Por eso vinimos. Pero ya es la hora de que nos vayamos.

Yo creo que son precisamente el ritmo y la repetición del discurso que le ayudan a mi suegro a continuar incorporando la tradición a pesar de su Alzheimer's. Cuando había acabado de hablar, le conté a mi hija la importancia, como legado cultural, de lo que había escuchado. Le aconsejé que atesorara esos momentos vividos con el abuelo. Después, rumbo a casa, compartí la observación con mi esposa también. Concordamos que sí, bien parece ser que la tradición oral de los huehuetlatolli vive aun en mi suegro, aunque dudamos de que pueda sobrevivir otra generación.

Mientras tanto: momentos preciosos, el descubrimiento de un tesoro florido.

Blasphemous Beasts

Tuesday, 15 May 1543

Producing his rustic spyglass from the inner pocket of his frock, Padre Bohórquez commenced his daily monitoring of the painting of the cathedral ceiling. A dozen Zapotec painters stood high above him on the scaffolding, their brushes at their sides, awaiting his approval. Apprentices, they had been rendering the sacred images of saints and angels as instructed at the studio workshop of their maestro José Bene Chhbe', who stood among them.

Even though his aging hands trembled, the padre could still see through his spyglass that the beatific face of San Juan Bautista had been filled in since yesterday, and a layer of anil blue had been added to the Virgen María's robe, just as he had instructed. He nodded approvingly.

Turning slowly, Padre Bohórquez panned through other canonical scenes--the martyrdom of San Antonio, the conversion of San Pablo--until he found the freshly sketched cartoon of Adam and Eve, chastely concealed behind shrubbery in a paradisaical forest.  They stood under the Tree of Knowledge, the padre assumed, but then why were the apples so green and wrinkly? The serpent--those garish colors--and in the tree, macaws and toucans? Spider monkeys hanging from their...?

"Blasphemy," Padre Bohórquez croaked. He cleared his throat and yelled, "Blasphemy!"

José Bene Chhbe' began to climb down the scaffolding. "Why do you shout this word, Your Reverence? Why do you make such a serious accusation?"

"These beasts!" The padre gestured with his spyglass. "These parrots and monkeys are not mentioned in the Bible! They did not board the ark with Noah! To say nothing of these awful pears! They have no name in the Book of the Word of God!"

"Does Your Reverence mean that the migu with his fantastic tail and the be'ewe with his splendorous plumage, to say nothing of the heavenly taste of the ya'shu, are not God's creations?"

"Of course not!" fumed the flustered padre. "We are all God's creatures and God's children! But these migu and whatever you call them live here. They do not live in the Holy Land."

José turned and winked at his apprentices. "Then does Your Reverence mean that the Lord our God has no dominion over this land of La'a, this land you call Oaxaca, Nueva España?"

"Our Heavenly Father rules the Earth and Skies!" fulminated the padre with a cough. "You know that! Why do you persist in these blasphemous expressions!"

"Padre Bohórquez, the bishop will come to visit on Saturday, no? We will leave this section be until he can see it."

The spyglass shook in the padre's hands. "On top of everything else you've done, you are challenging my authority? The insolence..."

"Padre, how long have we been working together? Three years? You know that I was trained in the capital under the patronage of the diocese. You know that my apprentices and I do good work. We paint from what we know."

"When the bishop arrives on Saturday he will support me unconditionally. If you leave that painting as is, it's only because I can't climb up there myself to erase those creatures." The padre shook his fist in frustration and walked out of the cathedral.

José broke into an epiphanic smile. "Friends, we need to do some trapping before Saturday."

Saturday, 19 May 1543

"Yes, of course I'd like to see the paintings, padre. Isn't José Bene Chhbe' in charge?"

Padre Bohórquez stepped from the street onto the threshold of the human-size door carved into the huge portón. "Please understand, Your Excellency, that his apprentice painters have taken exuberant liberties."

"Padre, if it helps the children of God find their way to mass, so much the better."

Padre Bohórquez opened the door and caught sight of a flash of crimson. He heard hooting and shrieking coming from beyond the vestibule. Brandishing his spyglass, he entered shouting, "What disturbs the House of the Lord?"

But he was not prepared for the answer. His eyes first registered that the rough-hewn pews had been upended in a corner by one of the altars, next  to the scaffolding pushed out of the way. His ears registered a human voice hushing other voices.

The two men-of-the-cloth rounded the corner of the vestibule into the nave. Standing in the vacant Paradise-painted altar niche, José greeted them. "Your Excellency, Your Reverence, behold: The Garden of Eden!"

On this signal, some of José's apprentices, crouching to the sides of the scene, pushed potted trees and other plants to the middle of the floor while others began playing drums and a wood flute. One of the apprentices stepped quickly past the dumbstruck padre and bishop to close the street entrance.

José began to narrate the second chapter of Genesis, and from behind one of the trees Adam appeared on cue, contriving to cover his groin with a belt of leaves. Adam acted out the naming of the animals, in Zapotec, as they were released from cages and nets by his fellow painters: monkeys and coatis, macaws and toucans. A spider monkey came to tug on the robe of the padre, who made to protest but was stifled by the bishop.

Then Adam pantomimed the sleep of the excised bone, and from behind another tree appeared Eve, wearing the expected leaf belts and looking quite apprehensive.

At this the padre could no longer contain himself and queried, "You there, Adam, is this your wife?"

Adam bowed. "Yes, Your Reverence."

"Proceed," said the bishop, with an irritated glance at the padre.

Both men were soon startled by an apprentice holding a snake, playing the part of the Serpent. Eve and Adam were tempted with an avocado, seduced, and reprimanded by the voice of José as God. Another stage helper brought crude clothes for Adam and Eve to hide their newly conceived shame, but at that moment paradise lost: there was a loud thunk as a coati knocked over the large cross on the chancel. All eyes turned and observed a macaw splashing and preening in the baptismal font, two spider monkeys fighting over some communion wafers, and the coati proceeding to rip and devour a page from the Bible laying open on the altar.

"Blasphemous beasts!" the padre spat out.

But the bishop began to chuckle as the padre and the painters ran and climbed all over the nave trying to catch the animals. They were soon joined by Adam and Eve, whose leaf coverings quickly disintegrated even as they chased the particularly noisy and irate howler monkey who had stolen their clothes. By now the bishop was doubling over, searching for a place to sit down, he was laughing so hard. José brought him a chair.

The padre managed to corner the heretic coati, but just at that moment a spider monkey filched his spyglass. The disheveled padre sputtered and coughed in desperation. He leaned against a side altar rail to regain his breath, only to cringe and recoil when he noticed the snake slithering toward him.

"It's only a sunbeam snake!" yelled José. "Harmless!"

But the frightened padre lurched against an upended pew and was promptly pelted with an avocado by the spider monkey perched precariously on top. As the padre backed away, wiping green paste from his robe, he knocked over one of the potted trees, from which a startled toucan flew in raucous protest.

The bishop, and now José too, were gasping and heaving, tears streaming down their cheeks. Everywhere around them was confusion and disaster, shrieks and howls and thumps, feathers and fur and bare skin: Eve and Adam had re-assumed their original innocence as they continued the hunt for their coverings. This chaos lasted for another good hour until the animals had been contained and José's crew lay or sat on the cathedral floor, exhausted.

Sunday, 20 May 1543

Sweating and gasping, Padre Bohórquez awakened from a disturbing dream. He had been walking naked through a wasteland inhabited by winged monkeys and prehensile-tailed parrots...

Smiling and humming, José Bene Chhbe' awakened from a pleasant dream. He had been walking nude through a paradise inhabited by winged monkeys and prehensile-tailed parrots...

The cathedral bell rang for morning mass. The curious joined the faithful filing through the vestibule; all Oaxaca had learned of the painters' bold but failed staging of paradise. As the congregants entered they saw and heard the animals, once again in their cages and nets and placed around the chancel.

Padre Bohórquez began the service. The congregation noted that the incense, once lit, seemed to calm and quiet the animals. The padre introduced the bishop, who first made a point of blessing the animals as representatives of all God's creation on this continent. Then the bishop called forth José Bene Chhbe' and his craftsmen, to commission the completion of the murals and to bless their work to that end. Finally, the bishop gave a sermon on the Fall of Man and Woman, and God's Forgiveness, before officiating communion.

The painters kept the animals for a few days as live models, then they returned the animals to the wild. They finished their murals, to much acclaim, by the end of the year.

Postdata: 1936

Oaxacan artisan Pedro Linares, ill with a high fever, dreamt of uncanny animals. They were mixed beasts, among them a winged donkey and a horned rooster, living in a kind of paradise. Perhaps in his dream he intuited an unorthodox interpretation of the Garden of Eden as a legacy from the cathedral's first painters. Their work, imagined here in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Oaxaca, would have long since been destroyed by fire and earthquake over the centuries, given the particular history of that cathedral. But many Baroque churches of Latin America are still adorned with Neotropical wildlife alongside Biblical figures. Linares' dream inspired his creation of those riotously colored, wondrously blasphemous beasts, the ever-popular alebrijes.

muiraquitã

das 

águas nasce,

feita a forma

do barro do fundo,

peixe, ou rã, ou jacaré

para se pendurar no colo

do amado, 

no peito perto

do coração e seus fluxos,

ou mesmo para se colocar

no lábio perforado e perorado

"fez da muiraquitã um tembetá"

unindo a origem, a sopa primordial

ao lugar da fala, ao óculo que produz

esses sons que chamamos de língua

de lembrança de linguagem de lírica

de lama-gole de lambe-garganta 

de lamento-gargarejo e de lascívia-gula
da longe origem lingüística vem a muiraquitã 

Calavera palinesca

Huesuda como ninguna,
de lengua muy afilada
--diríase de obsidiana--
pero de sesos, pues nada,
la Catrina palinesca
con su sonrisa malvada
osa ser la más dentuda
de todas nuestras calacas.
En revista y en pantalla
va de boca destapada
echando aires cual tetera
de ideas vaporizadas.

Mamá Osa medio ósea,
ruge como desalmada
aunque su ideología
anda desarticulada:
más que flaca, es esquelética,
de sustancia como emaciada.
Y de tanto escasear
cuando de ideas se trata,
se nos muere poco a poco,
quedándose descarnada.

Por la boca entra la mosca,
por la boca se va el habla,
por la boca muere el pez,
por ahi va el cuento de Sarah.