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La Raza

Through thatched huts the vehement noon
is pounding, pounding brittle cracks
in sun-dried straw. So forceful like
the woman's pestle grinding corn
for dinner. Driving kernels hard
and kneading, kneading south where rays
confront equator straight and flat.

But yet the rays are whimsical. They
venture wild paths at every bend.
And curve around my bottle’s neck.
They turn and light the liquid gold
through glinting glass, where cold and clear
the beading water droplets leave
a darkened pool on splintered wood.

The black-winged flies' sharp buzzing stirs
the dirt my booted heel digs round
and round. The Pintos are tacked and set
to ride, their saddles smoothly worn
down at the horn from gripping hands.
I feel the pop of metal snug
on leather as I cinch the straps,
of dust-caked stirrups swinging slack
along the girth. I mount. I know
disguised among dry brushes lies
the sun-bleached sandy shore where sea
refracts and angles beams of light
that sparkle in each tiny dip
upon the ocean’s lucid surface.

the water gleams with more facets
than jewelers' past have carefully cut.
The glimmers flee with each new wave
but soon emerge again reborn.

And leave my mind to contemplate
a place that celebrates the dead.
I lost my sense of century
along this undeveloped shore.
This atmosphere’s intense with strange
irreparable reality;
a restless quake below my feet
like Mayan bones that dance to beats
beneath deserted Indian ground.