Friday, February 12, 2010

On Graciela Iturbide’s Mujer Angel Sonora Desert, 1980

Here is where she enters Mexico.

Black and white photograph penetrates the soul

like a sacrament,

easy intimacy with the eyes, as if my

angel woman, Seri goddess,

boom box swinging

in her right hand, in her left

she’s pulling something hidden

from the rock,

long black

bridal veil of hair

maybe listening to hip hop

or be bop,

hiking down from the mountain-

top in white billowing

dress

her face a hidden

determination to be one

with/

the opposite of

the desert.

She descends sin nombre

into the sun-

basted,

flat

Sonoran badlands

where she’ll lose her mysteries

to that rigid overheated ocean

where scant rains fall,

here is where she enters my dream.

This was published by artist Leon Loughridge's DCPrint Folio this year in Denver. Poem is based on b & w photo by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide. Enjoy. Peace.

5 comments:

TC said...

John,

Very nice, especially like the interlacing rhymology in rock/hop/bop/top, holding things together, I like that feeling of unitary organism/complex, individuated and thus aglow for eternity. Or anyway for an approximate human while.

This poem has made me remember Santo Toribio Romo Gonzales, guardian of the frontera, guide and helper to the migratores.

They and we can use any help they and we can get.

Such as this poem.

Thanks.

John Macker said...

Tom:

Muchos gracias. Any true grace we can capture through the border night smoke.

John

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