Nat’l Poetry Month: ‘These Times’

In recognition of National Poetry here is a poem I written in 2018 in commemoration of the first African American woman president at my alma mater in Chicago, NEIU.  I had the distinct honor to read it at her inauguration ceremony.  Enjoy!

These Times

 

I

 

In these times, you and I share,

amidst the air you and I breathe,

inspiration we take from day to day thriving,

opposition we meet,

the sacred conch shell calls us,

drums beat, prayers sent up,

aromatic smoke of the pipe are our pledge to the gods.

 

An all-night fire vigil burns

where we may consume the small cactus messenger

of the Huichol and of the Pueblo people of New Mexico,

red seeds of the Tlaxcalteca,

mushrooms of María Sabina,

 tes de mi abuela

from herbs grown in coffee cans on a Chicago back porch,

tears of my mother on an assembly line in Lincolnwood, Illinois,

aid us in calling upon memory,

in these times.

 

 (Drawing by Ana Castillo 2017, mixed media on paper)

In other days,

when memory was as unshakeable as the African continent,

and long as Quetzalcoátl’s tail in the underworld,

whipping against demons, drawing blood,

potent as Coatlicue’s two serpent face,

and necklace of hearts and hands

(to remind us of our much-required sacrifices

for the sake of the whole.

we did what we could to take memory

like a belt chain around the waist to pull off,

to beat an enemy.

 

(photo credit: Pat Minjarez–door to my Capilla)

II

In these times of chaos and unprecedented greed,

when disrupted elements are disregarded,

earth lashes back like the trickster Tezcatlipoca

without forgiveness if we won’t turn around, start again,

say aloud:  This was a mistake,

we have done the earth wrong and

we will make our planet a holy place, again.

I can,

with my two hands,

palpitating heart; we can, and we will

turn it around, if only we choose.

 

In these times, all is not lost, nothing forever gone,

tho’ you may rightly think them a disgrace.

Surely hope has not abandoned our souls,

even chance may be on our side.

 

There are women and men, after all,

young and not so young,

tired but tenacious,

mothers and fathers, teachers and those who heal and do not

know that they are healers,

and those who are learning

for the sole purpose of returning what they know.

Also, amongst us, many who flounder and fall;

they will be helped by we who blunder.

All these and others must remember

We  won’t be eradicated, degraded and made irrelevant,

not for a decade or even a day.  Not for six thousand years

have we been here, but, millions.

(Eddie & me.  Photo credit:  my namesake Mariana Castillo, wardrobe, Mi’jo. Slogans: Not ours, but we were happy to wear them.)

III

Look at me. I am alive and stand before you,

audacious despite endless provocations

railed against an aging woman.

My breasts, withered from once giving suckle,

and as of late, the hideousness of cancer,

hair gone grey,

and with a womb like an overripe papaya

left in the sun; so,

my worth is gone–

they say–

value in the workplace, also dwindled,

as, too, the indispensable role of mother.

As grandmother I am not an asset

in these times,

but held against all that is new and fresh.

Nevertheless, I stand before you;

dignity is my scepter.

I did not make the mess

we accept in this house.

When the party is done,

the last captive hung — fairly or unjustly,

Children saved, others lost,

last of men’s wars declared,

trade deals busted,

others hardly begun,

tyrants toppled,

presidents deposed,

police restrained or given full reign

upon the public,

and we don’t know where to run,

on a day the sun rose and fell,

the moon took its seat in the sky,

sacred conch shell called,

drums beat,

prayers went up,

aromatic smoke of the pipe—

pledged to the gods,

I will have remained

the woman,

who stayed behind to clean up.

(2018)

(Published in Fifth Wednesday Journal, Fall, 2019)