Field of Flowers, and: The Procession, and: The Gods, and: The Galleon
Rent from DeepDyve- Field of Flowers, and: The Procession, and: The Gods, and: The Galleon
- Field of Flowers
A woman pokes about in a pile with a stick,turning over a radio's entrails. A boy sitsand plays with the frayed edges of his shawl.The day before, he says, he saw an eagle land onthe stinking ash and refuse. The blind are driven hereand picked up late. They are attracted by the firelightthat somehow gets through or reflects off the windowsof new highrises, reaching higher and fading,building upward as if they know what's onthe other side. I pick up some dry petalsand a twig as the sun begins to set over Montaña Humianteand its shrines to the Virgin, Mujer Blanca,over the maguays and Indian villages, theirtoasted beans and caged toucans, their silverthat bruised everything it touched. I look upat Chapultepec, which gave its porphyryto the statue in the plaza with the broken hands.The wind evaporates on the full black braidsof whispering women. I could ask themwhere to find some flowers. "Where can I gethuge flowers of the sun, the shield-flower,chimalxocchitl? Where can I find beautifulfragrant flowers?" But I might as well askthe green flash of hummingbirds,the evanescence of the tiny pajaro mosca.The women move away through brokenblue-green laurels and scrub the color of llamas.Somewhere beneath the still radiant solar lightthe flowers are fading to earth. In the widelunar glow they'll grow furry with dew,one by one reaching perfection, like the emperorCuauhtemoc and his men who at death turned to birdsof rich plumage and went behind the sun to livein its wide fields of flowers, forever, perfection. [End Page 68]
"These poems are from a new manuscript set in Mexico, a Mexico more of the mind than geography, a kind of "invisible Mexico" created from all sorts of sources, historical and otherwise. I've spent many years studying the native literatures from north of the border, and I thought I ought to turn my attention south."
Brian Swann has published many books in a number of genres, including seven books of poetry, such as Autumn Road (Ohio State UP) and Snow House (Pleiades/LSU Press); five collections of short fiction, including The Plot of the Mice (Capra Press); and several children's books, including A Basket Full of White Eggs (Orchard/Franklin Watts). He has translated sixteen volumes of poetry, and served as an editor for a number of volumes on Native American Literature, including Voices from Four Directions: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America (Univ. of Nebraska), and Algonquian Spirit: Contemporary Translations of the Algonquian Literatures of North America (Univ. of Nebraska). His most recent book is Born in the Blood: Essays on Translating Native American Literature (forthcoming with Univ. of Nebraska). Swann is a Professor of English at Cooper Union.
- The Procession
Last night, in the smoke, the moon had a seizure,wobbling so you couldn't understand it. Flowerson the hillsides are still confused, flying offin the remaining wind. Peasants are followinga funeral procession, heading for the horizonlost in blue lightning. The dead man's feetpoint backward to the maize fields where he was born.Ignazio whispers, "He said 'Don't leave me to dieon the side of the road. Don't leave me at night withmy eyes covered between two policemen. Take me home.'"A dog gnaws a bone in the dirt. No sign of policía.Later, in the café he tells me he.d once read in an old bookabout a fountain in the rocks where the water pours outand becomes green, and about a turquoise springthat sings between pebbles and the bell-bird responds.The song of the water, he said, sounds like tambourines."Where is this place?" "It's called Tonacatlalpan.Only for princes, owners of the world, a world onlyfor princes, nothing for the vassals, the common folk,those who grieve, those who...
