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Poetry

The Eagle

By Ambar Past
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee
I only learn to be content.
—Shogun Tokugawa
 
For Brisa Tinoco 
and those who have emailed asking 
if it’s true an old eagle 
sits alone on the mountaintop, 
tearing out its plumage, 
removing its beak and talons, 
to be reborn 
and live another thirty years
as a seer.
You see that creature with
the two-meter-long beard 
suckling at the breast 
of the ancient woman 
who gave birth to him 
during an eclipse?  
Look at that guy in chains.
A white-haired madman
Spitting on the floor tiles.
You’re always naked.  When you were little,
The pirates warn you 
not to look inside the trunk
but you open it
                                      —I don’t know what you see inside—
But from that time on 
you rant
at people only you can see . . .
                                      (You gaze like an eagle)
Breasts begin to bud and pubic hairs.
One wears her first indigo dye sarong.
Blue buttocks!  Bruises, domestic violence,
Swollen blue-black cadavers.
A mother at the morgue,
Her hand severed by a machete.
                                    (You see all.)
You don’t want to look at your dead mother.
You close your eyes so as not to see
How the cadavers hang from a kapok tree.
Dark breasts exposed to the sun, children still
Tied to their backs. 
Black flies! Starving dogs!
Widowers, Daughters in shawls. 
A granddaughter is born
And a patriarch dies.
How does a two-hundred-year-old man 
Paint with a golden root?
Search the common grave.
A shaman carves his violin on the branch of a strawberry tree.
Look: red corn, black corn, yellow and white.
Ribbons fly in the wind.
Coiled lanceheads.
Quetzals in the cloudforest.
                                       (Eagle soars on high)
The tornado blows off the roof!  Sit the dead man in a chair!
An armadillo-shaped bench.  Altars with stalactites.
The mother of treasure, I see the mother of ice,
The stepmother of bad government,
Paternalism . . .
Climb up on high while I play the flute.
                                      (You are clairvoyant . . . standing on a stone
                                      Your hair let loose beneath a full moon.)
Do you see tunnels where they offer up feathers to the ancestors?
The babe tied to a chair sucks on burnt bread.
In Sakam Ch’en de los Pobres
Students kill themselves with Gramoxone.
See those small coffins?
Elementary school number seven after the earthquake.
The trapped in Haiti . . .
                                      (How to extract life from rubble?)
There are guerillas who kill for love.
They blow up bridges and set the gin afire!
The consumer-vultures nourish themselves with our hunger.
                                      With your eyes closed, you see the mortars fall.
You never saw Walter again.
Or your buddy who lost his sight
And takes photos at the bonfire on New Year’s.
Shows them to you and asks 
If dogs eat human crap . . .
Latrines hang above the filth . . . Black rivers
Where cadavers float.  Volcanoes
For torture victims.  Gagged forensics.  Lawyers 
Their mouths sealed forever.
Don’t you see it’s very dangerous to be a reporter?
Very dangerous to tell the truth
About pederasts,
                                       (A conscience can be sold like water.)
Common sense drowns
In the well where pexi cola profits off our thirst.
See the little caca cola Christmas tree in front of your cathedral?
                                       (Look in a mirror)
See the mill extracting the liquor from sugar cane? The oval barrels
Are tied onto the back of a horse named Canelo.
See Mol Komate and Me Abrila?
Mica before the falling ash?
Your dear friends.
Dead in the street!
Dead from drink, from shock, from grief.
Look at Willy, Erasto, Garduño.
Cabeza de Toro and the herons
The poet in Boca del Cielo.  Fishermen at a wake.
Bricklayers in the marigold fields.
You see mongrels, beaten
In Xelajú: Mud up to your knees
Your face black from slash and burn.
How many mothers
Lose their sons?
Abandon their children
In the Terminal
Where the blind sing
Radio lullabies? 
                                         (Sun or eagle [heads or tails]?)
Chemical and medical products
Whose sale is prohibited by law.
Expired vaccinations, blood traffickers…
Hearts and livers for sale.
The serpent and the cat fight over a rat…
Roadblocks where torture victims cry out
your sister’s name.
Sacrifices. Altars. Synagogues. Minarets. Power
Horizontal and vertical.  
Voter fraud, the tombs of those shot down
By government assassins.
                                         (In the newspaper there are cadavers.)
In Atenco: girls and mothers raped.
                                         (Smear mud on your head and face
                                         So the soldiers don’t rape you).
It’s legal to rape your wife.
You can also kill civilians.
Three million in the Congo.
Our elected representatives turn a blind eye.  Do you hear
Comandanta Esther?
Fidel on the first anniversary.
A new dawn in Nicaragua
And in El Salvador.  See the miles and miles of shantytowns in Tegucigalpa,
The slums of Nashville, Tent City in Sacramento and Athens.
The armored tanks in Monimbó and in Oaxaca . . .
                                        What a landmine can do to a child!
In front of the Prosthetics Outlet
In Managua,
Barefoot children
In the street
Watch us eat
Through the window 
Of a Chinese restaurant.
When you finish your fortune cookie,
The children rush to eat your bones.
             The Safeway in Oakland has fifty meters of different kinds of cereal
For breakfast and fifty homeless waiting outside with the supermarket carts
Where they store their rags.
Look at the gypsies
In a circus so poor
The lion tamer
Performs with a stray dog.
                                       (You don’t watch TV.)
See the cortex of a fig bush?
How they pound it with stones and blood
To create leaves of paper . . . Did you see the Rainforest
When it still had trees?
The moon turns red
as we burn it down.
                                       (On many tables
You see only tortillas and salt.)
So many dead!
Fifty thousand murdered in five years.
Two hundred thousand during the civil war.
                                       Three million in Cambodia.
Wash the cadaver!
Seat him on a chair
And carry him to the holy ground
On a tumpline
Walking the whole way!
You burn the deceased’s clothing
And cry,
You sing
And for a while
You laugh
Uncontrollably.
                                        (Mayans in New York City)
The coffin where the widow doesn’t find her husband,
But some other guy killed by Border Patrol.
Long lines outside the embassy.
Clearly, it’s impossible to get a visa.
One million Mayans in Los Estados.
How many never marry because there aren’t any men left in the village?
                                        (Women travel in the trunk of the car.)
Watch the Indians step down off the sidewalk. 
To make room for the tourists!
You mend a pot by melting a nylon bag.
Houses of liana and thatch . . . no nails or cement.
Look how they kill the cock and offer him to the owner of Earth.
                                       (You’ll have caterpillar tacos for supper.)
You’ll learn to sleep on the ground and wake at dawn 
In markets where they don’t use money.
                                       (Buddha in a Sant suit.)
A monk sings sutras on the metro.
Look at the faceless.  Listen to the voiceless:
I repair gourds . . . knickknacks,
Flip-flops and sandals . . .
We trade our new mattress for your old one . . . 
Cans, cans, cans. . . (a knife-sharpener whistles.)
                                       (The reincarnation of the Eagle.)
The buzzards are renewed.
Macaws!  Toucans!
Hundreds of parrots in the ravine, thousands of swallows
Flying spirals in unison, a funnel cloud
Before hiding in the ruins of Toniná.
Fifty shooting stars!
Tornados . . . waterspouts . . .!
Dead shoppers at the Ocosingo market.
                                         (Who prohibits keeping the Seed of our Ancestors?)
Girls of thirty are already grandmothers waiting for money at the telegraph office.
How do the ones with fifteen children survive?
Loan sharks charge thirty percent a month!
                                         (Eagles don’t hunt flies.)
A woman offers lollipops to the baby pigeons
And cries when they don’t want to sit on her shoulder.
                                         (Eagle atop a cactus.)
Blown by the wind, the curtains
Of an open window form a cornucopia.
Do you own more than you can carry?
                                        (Serpent in the Eagle’s Mouth)
Do you hear the music of Chac Mol?
A hot waterfall
Is Paradise.
The rainbow is a bad omen.
Woman of White Earth
In the salt well.
On the beach a multitude
Pulls together
On the enormous net full of jumping fish
Like silver flames.
Old women, children, neighbors, all singing:
Catfish caught at dawn
Is a fisherman’s favorite supper.
(Is your eagle’s dotage better than the sparrow’s youth?)
A girl treads on a crab in the dawn’s light
On a beach newly abandoned by the sea.
Her head covered with a silken shawl
Scolding the storm.
The girl shakes the jute bag.
A new continent emerges from the ocean.
                                      (Dream you can fly?)
The sky is paved in stone.
Your finger points to a line in the open book.
You will write with smoke,
With a bulldozer.
Read the clouds.
Snooze in the shadow of a maguey
carved by graffiti artists.
The raft
in Xochimilco
Bears your name.
The glass-bottom boat
Reveals the wonders of the infra world.
                                       (a serenade)
First the boy friend paints his beloved’s house,
He closes the street, puts out chairs, tables . . . long white tablecloths.
Waiters serve Champagne.
The marimba orchestra appears.
A grand piano on a donkey cart.
A fat lady with her parasol,
Sitting on a throne carried by a tumpline.
A visionary takes the microphone.
Mayan hexes are made known.
                                          (Two Chinese speak their language in Mexico City.)
In Switzerland 
“Muslim”
Architecture is banned.
Antimigration barbed wire.
                                          (The littlest ones sleep under small Christmas trees from the dump.)
“That one’s female” shouts the little brother,
Pointing to the robin
In a sycamore my grandfather planted.
The skinny girl is embarrassed putting on your underpants.
The jerry-built sailboat rounds Cape Gracias a Dios.
They bear the Mother of Us All.
                                       A child sleeps in the meadow, embracing a wild foal.
Blondes dressed as apaches file through the passageway.
Emigrants lose limbs to the train tracks.
The clown receives death threats.
Following the orders of his parasites, 
A cricket dives into the puddle.
Pheasants scratch the earth for their chicks.
Your astrologist polishes blue jade.
A seer blesses the marriage.
She takes her guerilla lover 
On vacation.
A soldier carries firewood in her shawl.
Shipwreck on the isle along the coast.
                                      (Who survives the pandemic?)
There aren’t enough vaccinations for everyone.
How much is your thirst worth?
                                       (Basalt formations rise above an abyss.)
On the peak, in a niche, an eagle.
I haven’t cut my hair since 1978.
Summer of ’67: San Pancho.
A very conservative woman
Is confronted by a hippie.
Corner of Haight and Ashbury 2009:
An Olivetti on a card table.
                                       His hand-written sign: Poet for Hire.
Glassblowers create stemware with their breath.
Petals wash down the street, fireworks and dance.
The alchemist conducts experiments with his student.
They dye the cat pink.
A drunken chicken
Flaps around, trying to fly.
Building its nest, 
The bird becomes tangled in string…
Slowly it’s strangled…
Its mate
Unravels
The knot
Of liberty.
                                          (Eagle soars on high.)
The dead poet leaves a sealed letter
For his wife who can’t read.
                                          (The male’s pen and the female’s.)
Green crosses dominate the landscape.  
Children of every race 
And culture play with mud.
Some men have more
Women than others.
The harpy eagle, she lives alone
Grown old
In a zoo…
                                          (you begin to dash your beak against the rocks)
A volcano erupts and rains debris.
Do sunsets compete with each other?
                                          (A dragonfly shows off the beauty of its wings.)
The ancient abbess illuminates each icon with a candle.
You will see a pyramid of skulls.
Waves are proof of the power
Of air over water.
The wind holds back.
The waves become so calm
The surface of the sea
Becomes a mirror
Reflecting the clouds
In constant
Transformation.
                                          (A seer looks from afar, through the country of dreams.)
After a storm, the past dissolves.
A peacock celebrates the dawn.
A black moth
Brings news of death.
The image of an autumn leaf
Reveals mysteries.
                                         (An eagle and a white dove exchange naguals.)
They inseminate their own spirits.
Young girls carry lit torches.
To roof the house,
Everyone
Lends a hand
In the refugee
Camp.
Children play with mountains of sand.
The parrot repeats.
The mutilated return home.
                                        The immigrants spend the night in the desert.
A military band accompanies the funeral cortege.
The Pachamama bestows life on those dressed as dead children.
War veterans gather to share memories.
Chess tournaments in the Sarajevo cemetery.
In Xela the ball game is born.
                                        (In the Earth’s womb the elements are fertilized.)
A lamp shaped like a human cadaver.
A small donkey on the plateau.
In the north they harvest ice
From a pond . . .
Water: bless us with snow in your summer . . .
                                       (A blue jay rests on a stile.)
A fat little man rides a broomstick horse.
A covered bridge
Across the gully.  A thin girl
mows her grassy fields.
The magician blesses the faithful.
Your tyrants ask for tribute.
Guerillas ambush their own brothers.
War Reports.
                                      The voice of a Sun is heard.
Birds sing in their cages.
An angel carries a small marimba.  The hummingbird
Sips Poinsettia nectar.
You, my fire-eater:
How will you pay
For a transplant?
                                         (In the hospice there are no toys.)
A four-year-old girl carries the gunny sack.
At the horse races the birds are plucked by devils.
They paint their faces black and argue
With a dead turkey.
Hail covers the road to the ranch.
A council of elders honors the efforts of a young man.
Tibetan monks bless your business.
                                         (The scorpion becomes an Eagle.)
Sticks and stones come of their own force.
Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.
A moth will emerge from its chrysalis.
Traffic jams on the isthmus.
A bazaar and a parade.
Girls will play rattles.
The pilot flies with hobbled mules
And petrified thrones.
In the sanctuary
A medium will invoke silence.
                                      (Light breaks.)
Has the hour come
to follow
Colors through a prism?
Who is the Mother of Us All?
                                        (There are days when I see no one.)
I don’t see Montebello in flames or the poles melting.
I don’t see any jobs anywhere.
Children sell gum at midnight when the mutts 
Sleep curled like snails in the devil’s streets.
You can’t look at the herbicide
Without protection.
Or the syringes that the owner of the pharmacy uses
And reuses “for the poor Indians.”
Can’t you see that the pharmaceutical industry is a good investment?
Almost as good as arms.
And white slavery.
Who can stop looking
At the one billion people
Among us
Who don’t have 
any
Food or water today?
(You take flight.)
You see cadavers scattered around your final fortress.
How many do we kill in Gaza,
In Acteal,
And in Ciudad Juarez?
Swollen dead
Blue-black.
Dead in the desert.
Picked clean by vultures.
Stripped by dogs.
And eaten through by worms.
Do you see skeletons stained with blood?
Bones strewn . . .
My skull there
Bleached by the years . . .
(I don’t see anything)
I only
Learn 
To 
Be 
Content.
 “The Eagle” has 360 images, which can be employed as an oracle in the manner of the I Ching or the Sabian Symbols, magical poems also created by clairvoyants. 
These images are intended to evoke compassion, and can be used in the way Buddhist monks meditate on the pain of others or even contemplate the purification of cadavers in a cemetery where the dead are left to be devoured by buzzards. The objective of such practices is to develop awareness that all beings long to be free from suffering and to find the root of happiness. 
                                                                                                             –Munda Tostón
 
“Aguila” © Ambar Past. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2012 by Samantha Schnee. All rights reserved. 
English Spanish (Original)
I only learn to be content.
—Shogun Tokugawa
 
For Brisa Tinoco 
and those who have emailed asking 
if it’s true an old eagle 
sits alone on the mountaintop, 
tearing out its plumage, 
removing its beak and talons, 
to be reborn 
and live another thirty years
as a seer.
You see that creature with
the two-meter-long beard 
suckling at the breast 
of the ancient woman 
who gave birth to him 
during an eclipse?  
Look at that guy in chains.
A white-haired madman
Spitting on the floor tiles.
You’re always naked.  When you were little,
The pirates warn you 
not to look inside the trunk
but you open it
                                      —I don’t know what you see inside—
But from that time on 
you rant
at people only you can see . . .
                                      (You gaze like an eagle)
Breasts begin to bud and pubic hairs.
One wears her first indigo dye sarong.
Blue buttocks!  Bruises, domestic violence,
Swollen blue-black cadavers.
A mother at the morgue,
Her hand severed by a machete.
                                    (You see all.)
You don’t want to look at your dead mother.
You close your eyes so as not to see
How the cadavers hang from a kapok tree.
Dark breasts exposed to the sun, children still
Tied to their backs. 
Black flies! Starving dogs!
Widowers, Daughters in shawls. 
A granddaughter is born
And a patriarch dies.
How does a two-hundred-year-old man 
Paint with a golden root?
Search the common grave.
A shaman carves his violin on the branch of a strawberry tree.
Look: red corn, black corn, yellow and white.
Ribbons fly in the wind.
Coiled lanceheads.
Quetzals in the cloudforest.
                                       (Eagle soars on high)
The tornado blows off the roof!  Sit the dead man in a chair!
An armadillo-shaped bench.  Altars with stalactites.
The mother of treasure, I see the mother of ice,
The stepmother of bad government,
Paternalism . . .
Climb up on high while I play the flute.
                                      (You are clairvoyant . . . standing on a stone
                                      Your hair let loose beneath a full moon.)
Do you see tunnels where they offer up feathers to the ancestors?
The babe tied to a chair sucks on burnt bread.
In Sakam Ch’en de los Pobres
Students kill themselves with Gramoxone.
See those small coffins?
Elementary school number seven after the earthquake.
The trapped in Haiti . . .
                                      (How to extract life from rubble?)
There are guerillas who kill for love.
They blow up bridges and set the gin afire!
The consumer-vultures nourish themselves with our hunger.
                                      With your eyes closed, you see the mortars fall.
You never saw Walter again.
Or your buddy who lost his sight
And takes photos at the bonfire on New Year’s.
Shows them to you and asks 
If dogs eat human crap . . .
Latrines hang above the filth . . . Black rivers
Where cadavers float.  Volcanoes
For torture victims.  Gagged forensics.  Lawyers 
Their mouths sealed forever.
Don’t you see it’s very dangerous to be a reporter?
Very dangerous to tell the truth
About pederasts,
                                       (A conscience can be sold like water.)
Common sense drowns
In the well where pexi cola profits off our thirst.
See the little caca cola Christmas tree in front of your cathedral?
                                       (Look in a mirror)
See the mill extracting the liquor from sugar cane? The oval barrels
Are tied onto the back of a horse named Canelo.
See Mol Komate and Me Abrila?
Mica before the falling ash?
Your dear friends.
Dead in the street!
Dead from drink, from shock, from grief.
Look at Willy, Erasto, Garduño.
Cabeza de Toro and the herons
The poet in Boca del Cielo.  Fishermen at a wake.
Bricklayers in the marigold fields.
You see mongrels, beaten
In Xelajú: Mud up to your knees
Your face black from slash and burn.
How many mothers
Lose their sons?
Abandon their children
In the Terminal
Where the blind sing
Radio lullabies? 
                                         (Sun or eagle [heads or tails]?)
Chemical and medical products
Whose sale is prohibited by law.
Expired vaccinations, blood traffickers…
Hearts and livers for sale.
The serpent and the cat fight over a rat…
Roadblocks where torture victims cry out
your sister’s name.
Sacrifices. Altars. Synagogues. Minarets. Power
Horizontal and vertical.  
Voter fraud, the tombs of those shot down
By government assassins.
                                         (In the newspaper there are cadavers.)
In Atenco: girls and mothers raped.
                                         (Smear mud on your head and face
                                         So the soldiers don’t rape you).
It’s legal to rape your wife.
You can also kill civilians.
Three million in the Congo.
Our elected representatives turn a blind eye.  Do you hear
Comandanta Esther?
Fidel on the first anniversary.
A new dawn in Nicaragua
And in El Salvador.  See the miles and miles of shantytowns in Tegucigalpa,
The slums of Nashville, Tent City in Sacramento and Athens.
The armored tanks in Monimbó and in Oaxaca . . .
                                        What a landmine can do to a child!
In front of the Prosthetics Outlet
In Managua,
Barefoot children
In the street
Watch us eat
Through the window 
Of a Chinese restaurant.
When you finish your fortune cookie,
The children rush to eat your bones.
             The Safeway in Oakland has fifty meters of different kinds of cereal
For breakfast and fifty homeless waiting outside with the supermarket carts
Where they store their rags.
Look at the gypsies
In a circus so poor
The lion tamer
Performs with a stray dog.
                                       (You don’t watch TV.)
See the cortex of a fig bush?
How they pound it with stones and blood
To create leaves of paper . . . Did you see the Rainforest
When it still had trees?
The moon turns red
as we burn it down.
                                       (On many tables
You see only tortillas and salt.)
So many dead!
Fifty thousand murdered in five years.
Two hundred thousand during the civil war.
                                       Three million in Cambodia.
Wash the cadaver!
Seat him on a chair
And carry him to the holy ground
On a tumpline
Walking the whole way!
You burn the deceased’s clothing
And cry,
You sing
And for a while
You laugh
Uncontrollably.
                                        (Mayans in New York City)
The coffin where the widow doesn’t find her husband,
But some other guy killed by Border Patrol.
Long lines outside the embassy.
Clearly, it’s impossible to get a visa.
One million Mayans in Los Estados.
How many never marry because there aren’t any men left in the village?
                                        (Women travel in the trunk of the car.)
Watch the Indians step down off the sidewalk. 
To make room for the tourists!
You mend a pot by melting a nylon bag.
Houses of liana and thatch . . . no nails or cement.
Look how they kill the cock and offer him to the owner of Earth.
                                       (You’ll have caterpillar tacos for supper.)
You’ll learn to sleep on the ground and wake at dawn 
In markets where they don’t use money.
                                       (Buddha in a Sant suit.)
A monk sings sutras on the metro.
Look at the faceless.  Listen to the voiceless:
I repair gourds . . . knickknacks,
Flip-flops and sandals . . .
We trade our new mattress for your old one . . . 
Cans, cans, cans. . . (a knife-sharpener whistles.)
                                       (The reincarnation of the Eagle.)
The buzzards are renewed.
Macaws!  Toucans!
Hundreds of parrots in the ravine, thousands of swallows
Flying spirals in unison, a funnel cloud
Before hiding in the ruins of Toniná.
Fifty shooting stars!
Tornados . . . waterspouts . . .!
Dead shoppers at the Ocosingo market.
                                         (Who prohibits keeping the Seed of our Ancestors?)
Girls of thirty are already grandmothers waiting for money at the telegraph office.
How do the ones with fifteen children survive?
Loan sharks charge thirty percent a month!
                                         (Eagles don’t hunt flies.)
A woman offers lollipops to the baby pigeons
And cries when they don’t want to sit on her shoulder.
                                         (Eagle atop a cactus.)
Blown by the wind, the curtains
Of an open window form a cornucopia.
Do you own more than you can carry?
                                        (Serpent in the Eagle’s Mouth)
Do you hear the music of Chac Mol?
A hot waterfall
Is Paradise.
The rainbow is a bad omen.
Woman of White Earth
In the salt well.
On the beach a multitude
Pulls together
On the enormous net full of jumping fish
Like silver flames.
Old women, children, neighbors, all singing:
Catfish caught at dawn
Is a fisherman’s favorite supper.
(Is your eagle’s dotage better than the sparrow’s youth?)
A girl treads on a crab in the dawn’s light
On a beach newly abandoned by the sea.
Her head covered with a silken shawl
Scolding the storm.
The girl shakes the jute bag.
A new continent emerges from the ocean.
                                      (Dream you can fly?)
The sky is paved in stone.
Your finger points to a line in the open book.
You will write with smoke,
With a bulldozer.
Read the clouds.
Snooze in the shadow of a maguey
carved by graffiti artists.
The raft
in Xochimilco
Bears your name.
The glass-bottom boat
Reveals the wonders of the infra world.
                                       (a serenade)
First the boy friend paints his beloved’s house,
He closes the street, puts out chairs, tables . . . long white tablecloths.
Waiters serve Champagne.
The marimba orchestra appears.
A grand piano on a donkey cart.
A fat lady with her parasol,
Sitting on a throne carried by a tumpline.
A visionary takes the microphone.
Mayan hexes are made known.
                                          (Two Chinese speak their language in Mexico City.)
In Switzerland 
“Muslim”
Architecture is banned.
Antimigration barbed wire.
                                          (The littlest ones sleep under small Christmas trees from the dump.)
“That one’s female” shouts the little brother,
Pointing to the robin
In a sycamore my grandfather planted.
The skinny girl is embarrassed putting on your underpants.
The jerry-built sailboat rounds Cape Gracias a Dios.
They bear the Mother of Us All.
                                       A child sleeps in the meadow, embracing a wild foal.
Blondes dressed as apaches file through the passageway.
Emigrants lose limbs to the train tracks.
The clown receives death threats.
Following the orders of his parasites, 
A cricket dives into the puddle.
Pheasants scratch the earth for their chicks.
Your astrologist polishes blue jade.
A seer blesses the marriage.
She takes her guerilla lover 
On vacation.
A soldier carries firewood in her shawl.
Shipwreck on the isle along the coast.
                                      (Who survives the pandemic?)
There aren’t enough vaccinations for everyone.
How much is your thirst worth?
                                       (Basalt formations rise above an abyss.)
On the peak, in a niche, an eagle.
I haven’t cut my hair since 1978.
Summer of ’67: San Pancho.
A very conservative woman
Is confronted by a hippie.
Corner of Haight and Ashbury 2009:
An Olivetti on a card table.
                                       His hand-written sign: Poet for Hire.
Glassblowers create stemware with their breath.
Petals wash down the street, fireworks and dance.
The alchemist conducts experiments with his student.
They dye the cat pink.
A drunken chicken
Flaps around, trying to fly.
Building its nest, 
The bird becomes tangled in string…
Slowly it’s strangled…
Its mate
Unravels
The knot
Of liberty.
                                          (Eagle soars on high.)
The dead poet leaves a sealed letter
For his wife who can’t read.
                                          (The male’s pen and the female’s.)
Green crosses dominate the landscape.  
Children of every race 
And culture play with mud.
Some men have more
Women than others.
The harpy eagle, she lives alone
Grown old
In a zoo…
                                          (you begin to dash your beak against the rocks)
A volcano erupts and rains debris.
Do sunsets compete with each other?
                                          (A dragonfly shows off the beauty of its wings.)
The ancient abbess illuminates each icon with a candle.
You will see a pyramid of skulls.
Waves are proof of the power
Of air over water.
The wind holds back.
The waves become so calm
The surface of the sea
Becomes a mirror
Reflecting the clouds
In constant
Transformation.
                                          (A seer looks from afar, through the country of dreams.)
After a storm, the past dissolves.
A peacock celebrates the dawn.
A black moth
Brings news of death.
The image of an autumn leaf
Reveals mysteries.
                                         (An eagle and a white dove exchange naguals.)
They inseminate their own spirits.
Young girls carry lit torches.
To roof the house,
Everyone
Lends a hand
In the refugee
Camp.
Children play with mountains of sand.
The parrot repeats.
The mutilated return home.
                                        The immigrants spend the night in the desert.
A military band accompanies the funeral cortege.
The Pachamama bestows life on those dressed as dead children.
War veterans gather to share memories.
Chess tournaments in the Sarajevo cemetery.
In Xela the ball game is born.
                                        (In the Earth’s womb the elements are fertilized.)
A lamp shaped like a human cadaver.
A small donkey on the plateau.
In the north they harvest ice
From a pond . . .
Water: bless us with snow in your summer . . .
                                       (A blue jay rests on a stile.)
A fat little man rides a broomstick horse.
A covered bridge
Across the gully.  A thin girl
mows her grassy fields.
The magician blesses the faithful.
Your tyrants ask for tribute.
Guerillas ambush their own brothers.
War Reports.
                                      The voice of a Sun is heard.
Birds sing in their cages.
An angel carries a small marimba.  The hummingbird
Sips Poinsettia nectar.
You, my fire-eater:
How will you pay
For a transplant?
                                         (In the hospice there are no toys.)
A four-year-old girl carries the gunny sack.
At the horse races the birds are plucked by devils.
They paint their faces black and argue
With a dead turkey.
Hail covers the road to the ranch.
A council of elders honors the efforts of a young man.
Tibetan monks bless your business.
                                         (The scorpion becomes an Eagle.)
Sticks and stones come of their own force.
Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.
A moth will emerge from its chrysalis.
Traffic jams on the isthmus.
A bazaar and a parade.
Girls will play rattles.
The pilot flies with hobbled mules
And petrified thrones.
In the sanctuary
A medium will invoke silence.
                                      (Light breaks.)
Has the hour come
to follow
Colors through a prism?
Who is the Mother of Us All?
                                        (There are days when I see no one.)
I don’t see Montebello in flames or the poles melting.
I don’t see any jobs anywhere.
Children sell gum at midnight when the mutts 
Sleep curled like snails in the devil’s streets.
You can’t look at the herbicide
Without protection.
Or the syringes that the owner of the pharmacy uses
And reuses “for the poor Indians.”
Can’t you see that the pharmaceutical industry is a good investment?
Almost as good as arms.
And white slavery.
Who can stop looking
At the one billion people
Among us
Who don’t have 
any
Food or water today?
(You take flight.)
You see cadavers scattered around your final fortress.
How many do we kill in Gaza,
In Acteal,
And in Ciudad Juarez?
Swollen dead
Blue-black.
Dead in the desert.
Picked clean by vultures.
Stripped by dogs.
And eaten through by worms.
Do you see skeletons stained with blood?
Bones strewn . . .
My skull there
Bleached by the years . . .
(I don’t see anything)
I only
Learn 
To 
Be 
Content.
 “The Eagle” has 360 images, which can be employed as an oracle in the manner of the I Ching or the Sabian Symbols, magical poems also created by clairvoyants. 
These images are intended to evoke compassion, and can be used in the way Buddhist monks meditate on the pain of others or even contemplate the purification of cadavers in a cemetery where the dead are left to be devoured by buzzards. The objective of such practices is to develop awareness that all beings long to be free from suffering and to find the root of happiness. 
                                                                                                             –Munda Tostón
 
“Aguila” © Ambar Past. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2012 by Samantha Schnee. All rights reserved. 

Águila

 Sólo aprendo a estar contento.
-Shogun Tokugawa
Para los que me han escrito por e-mail
preguntando si es cierto
que un águila vieja se aísla
en la cima de una montaña,
arranca todo su plumaje,
desprende su pico y sus garras
y luego se renueva, se rejuvenece,
para vivir 30 años más
…como vidente:
 
¿Ves a la criatura con barba
dos metros de largo
mamando al seno
de una anciana
que le dio a luz
bajo un eclipse?

 

¿Ves al hombre encadenado?
Un loco de pelo blanco
escupe en las tablas del piso.
Siempre estás desnuda. Cuando eras niño,
los piratas te advirtieron
que no miraras dentro del baúl
 y tú lo abres
-no sé qué ves adentro-
y te quedas así…
hablando con seres que sólo tú puedes ver…
(Tienes mirada de águila)
Los senos empiezan a brotar a las púberes…
Una se estrena enagua de índigo.
¡Nalgas azules! Los moretones, la violencia doméstica,
cadáveres hinchados color azul negruzco.
Una madre en la morgue, 
la mano arrancada con machete.
(Todo lo ves.)
No quieres ver a tu madre muerta.
Cierras los ojos para no mirar
cómo penden cadáveres de una Ceiba.
Morenos pechos al sol y sus hijos aún
a la espalda. Viudos,
hijas en rebozo.
Nace la nieta
 y muere el patriarca.
¿Cómo pinta con raíz de oro
un hombre de doscientos años?
Asómate a la fosa común.
El chamán talla su violín en la rama de un madroño.                                       
Ve: maíz rojo, maíz negro, amarillo y blanco.
Listones del sombrero vuelan en el aire.
Nauyacas en serpentín.
Quetzales en el nuble bosque.
 (Águila vuela en lo alto)
¡El tornado levanta un techo! ¡Cargan al muerto en una silla!
Banca en forma de armadillo.
Altares con estalactitas.
La madre del tesoro, veo a la madre del hielo,
la madrastra del mal país,
el paternalismo…
Trépate en lo alto mientras toco la flauta.
(Eres clarividente… parada en una roca
bajo la luna llena con el pelo suelto.)
¿Ves túneles donde se ofrendan plumas?
La criatura amarrada a una silla come pan quemado.
En Sakam Ch’en de los Pobres
las alumnas se matan con gramoxone.
¿Ves los ataúdes pequeños?
La secundaria siete después del terremoto.
Los atrapados en Haití…
(¿Cómo sacar vida de los escombros?)
Hay guerrilleros que matan por amor.
¡Dinamitan los puentes y echan lumbre al ingenio!
Los buitres del consumo
se alimentan de nuestra hambre.
Con tus ojos cerrados, ves caer a los morteros.
Jamás volviste a ver a Walter.
Ni al compa que perdió la vista
y toma fotos en la fogata de Año Nuevo
para mostrártelas y preguntar
si los perros comen la caca de la gente…
Letrinas cuelgan encima de la porquería…
Ríos negros donde flotan cadáveres.
Volcanes para torturados.
Forenses mudos.
Abogados con la boca cerrada para siempre.
¿No ves que es muy peligroso ser periodista?
Muy peligroso decir la verdad
sobre los pederastas,
las minas de magnetita y titanio.                          
(La conciencia se vende como agua.)
 El sentido común se ahoga
en el pozo donde la pexi cola lucra con nuestra sed. 
¿Ves al arbolito navideño de la caca cola frente a tu catedral?
(Te miras en un espejo)
¿Ves trapiches extrayendo el jugo de caña?
Los barriles ovalados
se amarran al lomo de un caballo de nombre Canelo.
¿Ves a Mol Komate y a Me Abrila?
A Mica antes de la ceniza?
Ves a tus buenos amigos.
¡Muertos en la calle!
Muertos de pedos, de susto, de pena.
Ves a Willy, a Erasto, a Garduño.
A Cabeza de Toro, a las garzas y al poeta
en la Boca del Cielo.
Pescadores en velorio.
Albañiles en los campos de flor de muerto.
Ves chuchos apaleados.
En Xelajú: mucho lodo.
Fango hasta tus rodillas
 y el rostro negro de la roza.
¿Cuántas madres
pierden a sus hijos?
¿Abandonan a sus hijas
en la Terminal
donde los ciegos te cantan
canciones de cuna por radio?
(¿Sol o águila?)
Productos químicos y medicinas
cuya venta está prohibida por ley.
Inyecciones caducas, traficantes de sangre…
La culebra y el gato luchan por un ratón…
Retenes donde torturados denunian tus hermanas.
Sacrificios. Altares. Sinagogas. Minaretes. El poder
horizontal y vertical. Fraudes
con el voto,  las tumbas de los masacrados
por sicarios del gobierno.
(En el periódico hay cadáveres.)
En Atenco: niñas y madres violadas.
(Unte lodo en tu cabeza y rostro
para que no te violan los soldados.)
En Afganistán violar a tu esposa es legal.
También puedes matar civiles.
Tres millones en el Congo.
Los diputados se hacen de la vista gorda. ¿Oyes
a la Comandanta Esther?
Fidel en el primer aniversario.
Un nuevo amanecer en Nicaragua
y en El Salvador. ¿Ves la rueda de la miseria
en Tegucigalpa, las favelas de Nashville,
el tent city en Sacramento?
Las tanquetas en Monimbó y en Oaxaca…
¡Lo que hace una mina personal!
Frente al Surtidor de Prótesis
en Managua,
niños descalzos
en la calle
nos miran comer
a través del aparador
de un restaurante chino.
Cuando terminas la galleta de la suerte,
los niños entran a tragar tus huesos.
El Safeway de Oakland tiene 50 metros de distintas cajas de cereales
para tu desayuno y 50 homeless esperando afuera con sus carritos del súper donde guardan sus harapos.
Ve a las gitanas
en un circo tan pobre
que el domador de fieras
actúa con apenas dos perritos callejeros.
(No ves la tele.)
Ves la corteza de un amate,
cómo la golpean con piedra y sangre
para cundir hojas…¿Viste a la Selva
cuando todavía tenía árboles?
La luna se pone roja
en el tiempo de las quemas.
(En muchas mesas
sólo ves tortilla con sal)
¡Cómo abundan los muertos!
43,000 en cinco años.
Doscientos mil en la guerra civil.
Tres millones en Camboya.
¡Lavas al cadáver.
Lo sientas en una butaca
y lo cargas al campo santo
a puro pie andando!
Quemas su ropa del difunto
y lloras,
cantas
y por ratos
te rías
a carcajadas.
(Mayas en New York City)
El ataúd donde la viuda no encuentra a su marido,
sino otro fulano que mató la migra.
Vemos largas filas afuera de la embajada.
Por lo visto, es imposible conseguir una visa.
Un millón de mayas en Los Estados.
¿Cuántas en el pueblo de origen nunca se casan
por falta de varón?                                        
(Las mujeres viajan en la cajuela del auto.)
¡Mira no más cómo bajan los indios de la banqueta
para dar paso al turismo!
Remiendas una olla con bolsa de nylon derretido. 
Se ven casas de bejuco y paja… sin clavo ni cemento.
Ve cómo matan a la gallina para ofrendarla al dueño de la Tierra.
(Cenarás tacos de oruga.)
Aprenderás a dormir en las banquetas y a madrugar
en mercados donde todavía se ve el trueque.
(Buda en traje de Santa Clos.)
Un monje canta sutras en el metro.
Mira a los sin rostro. Oír a los sin voz:
Reparo guajes,
cacharros,
caites y chanclas…
Colchones nuevos por viejos…
Latas latas latas…
( silbato de afilador.)
 (La reencarnación del Águila.)
Los zopilotes se renuevan.
¡Guacamayas! ¡Tucanes!
Centenares de loros en la barranca,
miles de golondrinas coordinarse al vuelo en espirales
antes de volverse embudo
y esconderse en las ruinas de Toniná.
¡Cincuenta luceros!
¡Tornados… trombas…!
Muertos en el mercado de Ocosingo.
(¿Quién prohibe guardar la semilla de los ancestros?)
Muchachas de treinta ya son abuelas esperando su remesa.
¿Cómo le hacen las que tienen 15 hijos?
¡Prestamistas cobran 30% al mes!
(Águilas no cazan moscas.)
Una mujer ofrece paletas a los pichones
y llora cuando éstos no quieren posarse en su hombro.
(Águila trepada en un nopal.)
Soplado por el viento, las cortinas
de una ventana abierta  toman la forma de cornucopia.
¿Posees más de lo que puedes cargar?
(Serpiente en la Boca del Águila)
¿Oyes la música del Chac Mol?
Una cascada de agua caliente
y otra de agua fría
es el Paraíso.
El arco iris es de mal augurio.
Mujer de Tierra Blanca
en el pozo de la sal.
En la playa una multitud
jala tierra adentro
a la enorme red llena de peces que saltan
como llamas de platino.
Mujeres, ancianos, niños, vecinas, todos cantando:
Bagre de madrugada
Cena el pescador.     
(¿La vejez de tu águila es mejor que la juventud del gorrión?)
La niña pisa un cangrejo en la luz del amanecer
en una playa recién abandonada por el mar.
Su cabeza cubierta con rebozo de seda
reta a la tempestad.
La niña sacude al costal de yute.
Un nuevo continente sale del océano.
 (Sueñas que puedes volar.)
El cielo está empedrado.
Tu dedo señala a un renglón en el libro abierto. 
Escribirás con humo,
con buldózer.
Leerás a las nubes.
Dormirás a la sombra de un maguey
tallado por grafiteros.
La trajinera
de Xochimilco
lleva tu nombre.
La barca con fondo de espejo
revela los enigmas del inframundo.
 (Para llevar serenata)
Primero el novio pinta a la casa de la novia,
cierra la calle, coloca sillas, mesas… manteles largos.
Meseros sirven champagne.
Aparece la orquesta marimbística.
Piano de cola en carreta de bueyes.
Una mujer fodonga con parasol,
sentada en un trono cargado en mecapal.
Una visionaria toma el micrófono.
Se publican hechizos mayas.
(Chinos hablan su lengua en el Distrito Federal.)
En Suiza se prohíbe la arquitectura
“Musulmana”.
Picos de obsidiana.
Púas anti-trashumante.
Muralla de 800 kilómetros.
(Bajo arbolitos de navidad del basurero duermen los más pequeños.)
 “Aquella es hembra” grita el hermanito,                                                                    señalando al petirrojo
en un sicómoro que sembró mi abuelo.
La niña flaquita siente vergüenza al ponerse tu calzoneta.
El velerito de los misquitos llega a Gracias a Dios.                                             
Cargan a la Madre de Todos.
La niña duerme en la pradera abrazando al potrillo salvaje.
Rubias vestidos de apache desfilan por el andador.
Los emigrantes pierden sus miembros en las vías.
El payaso recibe amenazas de muerte.
Bajo la dirección de sus parásitos,
el grillo se avienta al charco.
Un faisán rasca la tierra para sus polluelos.
Tu astrólogo pule jade azul.
La vidente bendice al casamiento.
Ella lleva su amante guerrillero
a pasar las vacaciones.
Una soldadera carga leña en rebozo.
Náufragos en una isleta de la costa.
(¿Quién sobrevive a la pandemia?)
No hay vacunas para todos.
¿Cuánto vale tu sed?
(Formaciones de basalto se elevan sobre un abismo.)
En la cima, en un nicho, una águila.
Desde 1978 no corta el cabello.
Verano de ’67: San Pancho.
Una dama muy conservadora                                        
es confrontada por una “Hippie”.
Esquina de Haight and Ashbury, 2009:
Un poeta con olivetti en la banqueta.
Su letrero escrito a mano: Poeta busca poema.
Sopladores de vidrio creerán vasijas con su aliento.
Pétalos regados en la calle, pirotecnia y baile.
El alquimista conduce experimentos con la alumna.
Tiñen a la gata de color rosado.
Una gallina borracha
aletea en un intento de vuelo.
Construyendo su nido,
el ave se enreda en un hilo…
Por poco se ahorca…              
Su hembra
desata
al nudo
de la libertad.
(Águila vuela en lo alto.)
El poeta muerto deja una carta sellada
para la mujer que no sabía leer.
(Las plumas del macho y de la fémina.)
Tres cruces de color verde dominan el paisaje.
Niños de todas las razas
y culturas juegan el lodo.
Algunos hombres tienen más
mujeres que otros.
El águila arpía vive sola
en un zoológico
ya vieja…
(Empiezas a romper tu pico en las rocas)
Hace erupción un volcán y nieva escombros.
¿Se compiten las puestas de sol?
(Una libelula demuestra la hermosura de sus alas. )
La antigua abadesa alumbra cada icono con una vela.
Verás una pirámide de calacas.
Las olas son testigos del poder
del aire sobre el agua.
El viento se resiste.
Las olas se calman tanto
que la superficie del mar
se vuelve espejo
para reflejar a nubes
en transformación
constante.
(Un vidente mira de lejos a través de los sueños.)
Después de la tormenta, el pasado se disuelve.
Un gallo celebra la madrugada.
Una polilla negra
trae mensajes de la muerte.
La imagen de una hoja de otoño
revela misterios.
(Un águila y una paloma blanca intercambian naguales.)
Fecundan su propio espíritu.
Las jóvenes portan teas encendidas.
Para techar la casa,
todos
prestan la mano
en el campamento
para desmovilizados.
Niños juegan montes de arena.
El loro repite.
Los mutilados vuelven a casa.
                               Los inmigrantes trasnochan en el desierto.
Una banda militar acompaña al cortejo fúnebre.        
La Pachamama otorga vida a los disfrazados de niños muertos.
Veteranos de las luchas se reúnen para compartir sus memorias.
Tornamientos de ajedrez en el cementerio de Sarajevo.
En Xelaju nace el juego de la pelota.
(En el vientre de la Tierra se fecundan los elementos.)
Una lámpara en forma de cadáver humano.
Un pequeño burro en el páramo.
En el norte cosechan el hielo
de un estanque…
Agua: bríndenos nieve en tu verano…
(Un pájaro “Jesh” se posa en la tranca.)
Un gordito monta al caballo de escoba.
El escultor y su trabajo.
Un puente cubierto
sobre el arroyo. La flaca
chaporrea su pastizal.
El mago bendice a los fieles.
Tus caciques piden tributo.
Guerrilleros emboscan a hermanos.
Partes de Guerra.
Se oye la voz de un Sol.
Aves cantan dentro de su jaula.
Un ángel porta marimbita. El colibrí
liba el néctar de la Noche Buena.
Tú, mi tragafuegos:
¿Con cuál moneda pagarás
un transplante?
 (En el hospicio no hay juguetes.)
Una niña de cuatro años carga la bolsa del mandado.
En carrera de caballos despluman a las aves.
Pintan sus caras de negro y hablan
con un guajolote muerto.
Una granizada blanquea la carretera a la finca.  
Un consejo de ancianos honra los esfuerzos de un joven.
Monjes tibetanos bendicen tus negocios.
(El escorpión se convierte en Águila.)
Los palos y las piedras vendrán solos.
La Osa Mayor y la Osa Menor.
Una polilla saldrá de tu crisálida. 
Embotellamientos en el istmo.
Un bazar y un desfile.
Niñas tocarán las maracas.
El aviador trae su mula manatiada
y tronos petrificados.
En el santuario
un médium invocará al silencio.
(La luz se rompe.)
¿Ha llegado la hora para seguir
colores a través del prisma?
¿Quién es la Madre de Todos?
(Hay días en que no veo a nadie.)
No veo a Montebello en llamas ni a los polos derritiéndose.
No veo fuentes de trabajo por ningún lado.
Niños venden chicles a las 12 de la noche cuando los perros
duermen hechos rosca en la calle del diablo.
No puedes ver el defoliante
sin ninguna protección.
Ni las jeringas que la dueña de la farmacia usa
 y re-usa ”para los pobres indios.“
¿No ves que la industria farmacéutica es una buena inversión?
Casi tan buena como las armas.
Trata de seres humanos.
¿Quién puede dejar de ver
a los
mil millones
de personas
que hoy no tienen
ni comida ni agua?
(Te levantas en vuelo.)
Ves cadáveres esparcidos en tu último reducto.
¿Cuántos matamos en Gaza,
en Acteal,
y en Ciudad Juárez?
Muertos hinchados
de color azul negruzco.
Muertos en el desierto.
Descarnados por los buitres.
Despojados de su carne por los perros.
 Y roídos por los gusanos.
¿Ves esqueletos manchados de sangre?
 Huesos dispersados…
Mi cráneo por allá
blanqueado por los años…
 
 (No veo nada)
Sólo
aprendo
a
estar
contenta.
 
© Ambar Past

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