Category: Poems & poem-like things

Marcos (5) (conclusion)

He glances again toward the people
& sees how some of the women
look appraisingly toward those plants
he’d thought were weeds
growing randomly through
the piled rocks–which, he realizes,
follow the contour as regularly
as terraces. Wipe out
any infertility from this land
filling the hungry with
an abundance of good things
so that the poor & needy may praise
Your wondrous name forever
world without end. (Amen.)

The Indian Marcos passes him
the calabash filled with holy water
& he sprinkles it where the elders indicate,
pursing their lips toward the stone
nurseries with their odd crops
which he recognizes now as some relative
of the maguey plant,
leathery green clusters
of upthrust spears. Then
before continuing the procession

they erect an extra, larger cross–
the one Esteban had sent back
with a message to hurry,
the mission fields were ripe–
& since the ground’s too hard
to dig, they pile up stones
pirated from the fields
to form a miniature Golgotha.
Holy Cross, which art the divine
gateway to Heaven, Altar
of the singular essential
sacrifice of the body
& blood of the Son of God,
open for us a safe & peaceful road
for their conversion & for our conversion.
Give our king peaceful possession
of these kingdoms & provinces
for his most sacred glory.

Another holy song,
the interpreter whispers.
He uses still the priestly language,
but we understand that this
is the most important blessing of all
upon the land. The headman
shifts the rogational cross
to his left shoulder. If I have to keep
my face solemn like this
for very much longer, he mutters
to the man beside him, I swear
it’ll turn to wood. Who ever heard
of a god served in sorrow?

But at a signal from the friar he resumes
his stately walk, leading the people
to the next point in the circuit
where long ago First Woman
stippled the soft wet ground
with her planting stick.

__________

Holy Cross . . . glory. I took this formula for the Act of Possession from a quote attributed to the notary and secretary of Juan de Oñate, when he “took possession of all the kingdoms and provinces of New Mexico” in 1598. It actually constitutes a tiny subsection of a very lengthy legal and religious discourse delivered by Oñate on the spot. To read such speeches in close conjunction with translations of Native oratory is to be struck anew by the gulf between the two civilizations.

It was recorded by Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, a lieutenant under Oñate and subsequent author of Historia de la Nueva México. This work, recently reissued in a bilingual edition by the University of New Mexico Press, is actually an epic poem–one of many 16th- and 17th-century New World epics written by Iberians heavily under the spell of Virgil. It’s unique for its length, for the interminability of its sentences, and for its composition in blank verse rather than rhymed meter. The central drama in the book is the “revolt” (more accurately, resistance) of Acoma Pueblo, just east of Zuni/Shiwanna, ending in a Spanish victory complete with cameos by the Virgin and St. James the Moorkiller.

Marcos (5) (cont’d)

The procession winds through the fields–
or are they gardens? Indian plantings
always remind him of the dooryard
gardens back home
in Provence, that same
commingling of tame & wild,
the artful confusions of herb
& tree & vine. He wonders if here,
too, they have cunning-men
& neighbor ladies gifted in
the knowledge of signatures,
God’s gossip with weeds.

But as they climb the dry slopes
beyond the reach of the last
irrigation ditch, they pass windrows
of rock piles like one would expect
at the edges of plowed fields–except
there’s very little growing between them
in the sun-baked clay, only
the hardiest thorn bush & creosote
& the annual evidence of springs unseen
already yellowed, powdering
under their sandals.

The cross stops before a large pit
black with charcoal
& Marcos finds himself in the middle
of the rogational psalm: My prayer
is unto thee Oh Lord
in an acceptable time
Oh God in the multitude
of thy mercy hear me,
in the truth of salvation.
Deliver me out of the mire,
don’t let me sink–from those
who hate me, out of the deep
waters–don’t let the flood
wash over me nor
the deep swallow me up.
Let not the pit–he startles
at the aptness of it–
let not the pit close
her mouth around me. . . .
For the Lord hears the poor, his captives
he never scorns. Let the heaven
& earth praise him, the seas
& everything that moves.
For God will save Zion & rebuild
the cities of Judah . . .

Then the antiphon with the other Marcos,
who gazes impassively toward the north,
the wine-dark horizon:
Bless these fields. (We beg you to hear us.)
Bless these hills & mountains,
consecrate every wild tree & bush
from which these your servants
gather sustenance (We beg you to hear us).
And all else besides, he murmurs: best
to cast the net widely, or not at all.

Marcos (5) (cont’d)

Marcos rises renewed, seized
with fresh intent: later
this very morning–since
he’d already planned, with the help
of his three assistants, to honor
their hosts’ request for holy songs–
to bless the fields and wild crops
in solemn procession.
To improvise
a penitential rogation. It’s only
a few days past the official date:
his name-saint’s day,
the Feast of St. Mark.

Thus it happens that four hours after sunrise
on their fourth morning in the valley
they kneel before the makeshift altar,
the natives wearing (as instructed)
no jewelry & only their plainest
cotton robes, as well as the sad looks
this rite demands.
The friar launches into the litany:
God the Father of Heaven have mercy
God the Son Redeemer of the world have mercy
God the Holy Spirit have mercy
Holy Trinity One God have mercy on us
Holy Mary pray for us
& at a signal from the Indian Marcos
all rise, queue up by twos
behind the cross, carried by a newly
baptized elder: first the men,
then the women, & bringing
up the rear the four religious,
Marcos as always finding the sacred
phrases right at hand, inevitable
as wave following ocean wave–
Holy Mother of God pray for us
Holy Virgin of Virgins pray for us
his inner senses freed for contemplation.

He marvels at the silence–no
suppressed giggles, not even a whisper–
& finds himself stealing glances
at this congregation–if such
it can be called–of freshly
baptized infidels. One woman
he notices with hair modestly
unbound, spilling down her back
& around her bowed head–such
humility in her posture,
her chaste attire,
St. Benedict pray for us
St. Bernard pray for us
St. Dominic pray for us
St. Francis pray for us,
he allows himself to imagine
a future for her in Service,
as a Bride of Christ–
all ye holy priests & Levites pray for us
all ye holy monks & hermits pray for us
St. Mary Magdalene pray for us
St. Agatha pray for us
St. Lucy pray for us
St. Agnes pray for us
St. Cecilia pray for us,
perhaps even a founder, Lord willing,
of the first chapter of Poor Clares
north of New Spain. As soon
as the word arrives from Rome, per
his request, for full native
admission to the orders . . .
All ye virgins & widows pray for us
be merciful, spare us O Lord
be merciful, graciously hear us O Lord
from all evil O Lord deliver us
from all sin O Lord deliver us
from thy wrath O Lord deliver us
from a sudden & unprovided death
O Lord deliver us . . .
__________

rogation – Rogation days were “Days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, instituted by the Church to appease God’s anger at man’s transgressions, to ask protection in calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful harvest,” according to the online Catholic Encyclopedia. “The Major Rogation [on April 25], which has no connexion with the feast of St. Mark (fixed for this date much later) seems to be of very early date and to have been introduced to counteract the ancient Robigalia, on which the heathens held processions and supplications to their gods. St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) regulated the already existing custom.”

Marcos (5)

East: Jerusalem, Mageddo
where Christ will return in glory.
South of East: Peru. México. Kingdoms
condemned to be beautiful & rich.
West of the South Sea:
Cipongo. India. Cathay
of the Great Khan.
Fabled missions of Prester John
& the Apostle Thomas, patron
of all who wrestle with a literal mind.
North: Cí­bola. Now only
some sixteen days off.

And lately the friar hears
it’s just one city, richer than some–
though not as rich they tell him
as Totoneac downriver to the west,
where in the hottest, driest part of
the land one can walk
for a week & never lose sight
of green, well-irrigated fields.
A miracle of the kind
he’s come to expect
from a lifetime in the Rule:
great poverty the most fertile ground
for sustenance, a lodestone
for earthly blessings. See
how all these Indians have fed
& honored him, pressing
to touch his robe, erecting
triumphal arches . . .

In a sudden vision as he kneels
in meditatio, the hated Francisco
hangs again from the cross–but this time
a true imitation, an Indian Christ.
Out of the hole in his side spills
an enchanted waterfall, a rain
of flower petals in every color
including a few he can’t remember
from any rainbow. Four
Indian women weep at the foot
of the cross–a twisted snag, long-dead
except for one thin ribbon of bark
& a single branch of the crown.

But it sings, this tree, it breathes.
It has a heartbeat. One of the women
straightens up & hears it: he thinks
it’s Martha, the one with callused hands,
it hurts her back to kneel so long.
Her face glows, transfigured.
Whatever news she hears will save
her people. This voice no longer like his
speaks with assurance.

(To be continued.)
__________

Totoneac: Historical anthropologist Daniel Reff interprets this otherwise unknown toponym in Marcos’ Account as a reference to the center of Hohokam civilization in the vicinity of modern Phoenix, Arizona.

the hated Francisco: See Marcos (1), from Cibola 24 on.

The images of the enchanted waterfall and the talking tree both come from Yaqui Indian folk Catholicism. (I’m not trying to suggest that Marcos de Niza was ultimately responsible for those motifs, simply that he is beginning to think in a more Indian fashion here.)

Reader (14)

[God] brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring . . . . Now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of spring, but as the Sun at noon.
JOHN DONNE
Christmas sermon

Hohokam floodwater cultivators lived from the bounty of storm-driven floods but were simultaneously subject to the unpredictable consequences of uncontrolled flows. As shallow drainages flooded and shifted across alluvial fans, they buried the houses of farmers in the same rich sediments that nourished their fields. . . . Unlike their counterparts in the Old World, the Hohokam were direct gatherers and consumers of desert vegetation, without domestic animals [such as sheep, goats and cattle] as highly efficient, but ultimately destructive, harvesters . . .
SUZANNE K. FISH
“Hohokam Impacts on Sonoran Desert Environment”

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.
JOHN THE BAPTIST
Gospel According to John 1:29

Esteban/Cibola/Shiwanna (conclusion)

The sleeper starts,
gets up, sure he felt a body
creeping under his blanket.
Reaches, finds something sticky,
stirs the fire.

A shape of horror,
the beautiful woman who took
him to bed revealed in
her true shape: a corpse
sleeping without sleep, waking
without waking up,
rising so all the rest
of the flesh drops off,
he strikes the skull from the neck
& the bones fall in a clatter. But
the voice, the girl’s voice
merely grows more shrill,
demanding love,
insisting on the faith
he almost remembers pledging,
threatening Hell in an instant as
he flees the now-
ruined house, literal
ghost town
for the ancestors
of some tribe
who live under a curse in an old story.
He almost remembers it,
how they all pack up & leave
to avoid retribution,
down in the burning land
rebuild their towns:
whole kingdoms of witches, now,
who begin to send their raiding
parties north,
their slavers south . . .

He runs.
He can hardly move.
The level plain keeps turning
into mountains. And all
the while a rumbling
as the skull rolls
after him, baying
despite its disarticulated
jaw, the grin
by now so wide
it can feed on wind,
can suck down every cloud
as it crests the horizon.
It’ll be his fault when the fields
turn to stone, it’s because of him
the corn maidens flee,
the millet beer turned sour,
the butter didn’t come.
The ancestors holler, shaking
their rattles, pounding the floor
with their fat stubby limbs.
Desperate, wild,
he whirls around

& nothing. The shrieks
come from his own throat,
regular as the cries
of a woman giving birth,
sounds without meaning.
No. Sounds too full of meaning
to reduce to words,
coming too fast, rising,
bubbling up
like the foam on beer,
congealing into one
long cry, &
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
sweet jesus! the newborn all
sticky with the waters
of its birth, cold.
Possessed by a single wail
that signifies No.
And at ten
days old still
anonymous, not yet
a finished being.
Plucked from its fitful sleep
& carried out
naked to show
the newly risen
round
red
sun.

Esteban/Cibola/Shiwanna

Night falls
& falls: a rain
of obsidian blades,
scalpel & lancet. Black
jaguar’s cough like
a hollow footfall, yawning
harlequin face, tongue curled
to strike: a blood-colored snake.
Orchids’ quicksand throats
overflowing with flies.

The sleeper
forgets to breathe.
The sleeper wakes up
in someone else’s dream,
bending over the dusk-dark
narcoleptic body,
tracing hidden trails
of sickness: sorcerer’s spoor
in the form of aches
& stabbing ulcers, bugs
& bullets of filth.
And the supine figure
slowly reveals
its true dimensions,
boundless–looming up
or abiding as the chest swells,
subsides–& the tobacco
smoke drifts in & out
like a mist, eddies,
spawns a whirlwind.
Spinning over
the darkening desert
the dreamer flies,
circles the highest sierra’s
rain-filled cap,
breaks through
to a hidden glen where
the darkness emits
its own illumination.

A wren
shows him the way
upcanyon
to the spring that leads
(she says) to the seven caves.
The water parts for them,
they trade their feather robes
for the shells
of small brown turtles
at home in the veins
of the earth.
When they mate, they strip
back down to
their human skins–copulate
face to face–but even still
she lays
a clutch of eggs
that hatch into a million
sightless minnows:
a kingdom of the blind
that has no use for a king
or his crystal cup,
his philosopher’s stone.
He grinds it to meal
in a mortar, gives it
his best diviner’s cast
& watches
where it goes,
follows its trail.
A short century later

he comes out on
the bottom of a lake
where two rivers join. And
at last, he rejoices, hearing
flutes & drums,
glimpsing domes
& shimmering towers.

He wanders through fragrant groves,
splashes his face with a fountain’s
astonishing liquor.
Everything is jade
or turquoise, white shell
or cowry, silver, gold,
every house is a palace
in this village of the Jinns.
He finds the dance &
they pause just long enough
to let him join the circle . . .

(To be continued.)

Reader (13)

Well into the sixteenth century, sleep is one of the prodigal sources of historical documentation, of which the court astrologer is archivist. More difficult to circumscribe but also more important in the dynamics of history are those dreams which transcend the consciousness of the individual. History knows of collective dreams of panic or of hope, of refuge or of action. . . . “Promised lands”, even when they are first dreamt individually . . . are re-dreamt a thousandfold by the community of the convinced.
GEORGE STEINER
“The Historicity of Dreams”

In Zuni dreaming a segment of the dreamer’s self travels outside the body and has experiences in past, distant, or future times and places. . . . [Medicine society members and rain priests] express no fear of dying while dreaming, or at any other time, since their initiation involves the strengthening of their essence, composed of a combination of breath and heart, by projecting part of it into their personal icon (mi’le).
BARBARA TEDLOCK
“Zuni and Quiché dream sharing and interpreting”

Possibly, too, the Zuni have gone too far in attempting to inhibit the development of traits of aggressiveness, initiative, and what we in general call individuality without offering an adequate channeling for such traits. It may be significant . . . to point out in this connection the prevalence in Zuni mythology of the castration-phobia theme. In rape tales the sexual role is reversed and it is the man who is afraid of the woman.
IRVING GOLDMAN
“The Zuni Indians of New Mexico,” in Margaret Mead, ed., Cooperation and Competition Among Primitive Peoples