Friday, December 4, 2015

Only Write Swimmingly








Jump in media res only

two hundred twelve kilometers

the distance between

Athens and Sparta

alienates

description from action

literature from life

poetry from prose.

My dear finless friend

pick up your pen

at Tripoli

continue past Mandra

follow Olympia Odos

to your destination.

These directions

are for planning

porpoises only.

       ~ * ~ 




Public domain photo

Monday, November 16, 2015

New Mexico Musings



 
Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In 900, Native Americans first settled the land of the oldest US state capital, Santa Fe. Pueblo villages rooted there in 1050-1150. In 1607, Spanish soldiers and politicians claimed the city for New Spain. For eighty years, Spain sent soldiers and priests to suppress and replace Pueblo culture with Spanish culture and Catholicism. In 1680, the Pueblo Indians revolted and pushed out the Spanish colonists. Twelve years passed. The Spanish returned and re-conquered the territory. Violent cultural conflicts quieted in a peaceful surrender by Santa Fe’s original inhabitants. But the culture wars continued. Native crops and ways yielded to European priorities to the detriment of indigenous culture and faith.
 
Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi from the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts.
The city’s ghosts are palpable. The layers of bones that lie dormant beneath Santa Fe include a burial ground of indigenous origin and the remains of slaughtered Native, Spanish and Mexican people. During World War II, Santa Fe held 4,555 men of Japanese heritage imprisoned. The buildings are gone, but the scars remain. These men were taken without warning from their families. They were Buddhist and Christian leaders in their communities, scholars, teachers, businessmen, sons, husbands and fathers. Their forgotten internment adds another layer of injustice perpetrated on Santa Fe’s soil by the demon of ideological conviction harnessed with fear.

Parking lot in Santa Fe. Click here for a short PBS video on the internment.

Santa Fe, which means “holy faith” in Spanish, reminds me of Bethlehem where a succession of conquerors of divergent cultures and faiths each added a strata of architectural dominion. Each victor built atop its predecessor’s construction to mark homage or destruction of the original cave where Jesus was born. Somehow, despite this architectural jousting, the original idea that human beings are meant to have a divine origin remained. Even when the buildings were razed, a robust oral tradition kept alive the knowledge of the starlit cradle.
 
Sun and wind with prayer flags at Stardreaming.
It took me several days and many miles of walking around Santa Fe and its dry riverbeds to grasp how I could approach its hallowed ground with the baggage of my mostly European ancestry. Great Spirit speaks through the land, the power of the stones, and the clarity of desert light. City building codes harmonize construction with Pueblo nuance. Local inhabitants echo and beckon a common ancient origin through art. They honor those of Spain who brought peace, those from Mexico who brought justice and the contemporary Native artists that recall their ancestors and look to build a wise future for all children. There is a lively Asian community.
 
"Woodland Child in Gas Mask" by Naomi Bebo. (MoCNA)
The small joys and deep suffering of thousands, in graves known only to the ghosts, have penetrated and emerge from the earth who is in constant conversation with the sun. Shadows project ochre, sienna and umber. Through glossy thorns, cactus speaks in rosy yellow blooms and wine red hips. In the creek bed, aspen shimmers gold against viridian pine boughs. Before tumbleweed rolls from its earthbound roots, its mustard blossoms render seeds that draw birds into its wiry arms. The birds feast. The tumbleweed releases them back to the sky in freedom.
 
Before the feast.
Perhaps in our swift passage through this life we can only hope to have the faith of a tumbleweed or to grasp peace with the conviction the eagle summons from a shaman to fly. 

"Dream of Flight" by Lincoln Fox. (Albuquerque International Sunport)