Below

                                    Ravines disappear under under

                                    Blunders of neglected boulders boulders

                                    And up and up

                                    The scar-faced rocks rocks

                                    Omens omens

                                    Hurry across the cañon the cañon

                                    Like hawks peering for prey for prey

                                    A ticket rests folded folded

                                    In my pocket pocket,

                                    But has no purpose purpose

                                    Among desperate thieves thieves

                                    Who rob time time time

                                    Slowly draw draw

                                    Drops from the pores the pores

                                    What was life life life

                                    My salty hide hide

                                    Scrapes gravel gravel

                                    From the cliffs the cliffs

                                    Of applause from below below.

                                    Halfway between between

                                    Heaven and earth earth

                                    Pinned on a dead-end ledge ledge

                                    In my pocket pocket

                                    A ticket waits waits

                                    To decay…cay ..cay

                                    With shirt threads destined destined

                                    To be scattered scattered

                                    By dust devils devils

                                    Sewn into echoes echoes

                                    That bounce off the rocks rocks

                                    Down below below.

           

           

-          C. S. Cholas

Creel, Chihuahua, abril 1986

Camote

                                                                                                “¡En verdad, digo!

                                                                                                Nadie ha comprendido la raiz

                                                                                                de esta Causa…” – Bahá’u’lláh

                        I cannot see far behind me

                        My father’s youth exists,

                        But is beyond me, like a root

                        Hidden in the soil of memory.

                        I surmise what emotions

                        Filled his life in those early years.

                        I only know him from what he is to me now;

                        The tree that he has been to my life, my childhood,

                        My emotions.  The future is less clear.

                        Captured in the irony of time; surrounded

                        By timeless realities.  I am trapped.

                        I go from meal to meal, from pain to pleasure

                        And back again.  I feel coldness, hotness, hardness,

                        Anxieties of the hour, an euphoric moment, from dream

                        To dream, rotation of the earth from light to dark,

                        Then dawn comes up like a relative, an inconsistent friend

                        Under the absolute sun.

                        I struggle, endure darkness, and yearn for daylight.

                        A girl sells camote on a Cuernavaca sidewalk.

                        Curious, I ask about its name, its life.  It is a root

                        Come up from the dark underworld for our pleasure.

                        The girl cuts one for me to share with my friend.

                        Eaten in a delicious joy, we thank her and give her five pesos.

                        She smiles in the morning light and says, “de nada,”

                        O, but it is!

-         C. S. Cholas

24 December 1982

Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico