By Charles Haddox
Millenary El Paso
I.
At every hour there is brushwork,
and people, birds, houses.
Those kiln-baked patios
where dogs sing to the wind.
Night wanders about the night,
through a derelict hotel,
like bread rising in a window,
expectant, filled with tears.
Bare aloes, violet from winter’s embalmed terrain,
or pale as some ruined watchtower
in a sky the color of sand.
Hands carry water,
the fertility of canals,
to grasp the trees
by roots and clouds.
There is no language
for ironwood crosses,
leaden fences,
centuries of migration;
but an almost-mythical ambit
of love and empty wounds.
This homeland,
always on the edge
of ceremony or collapse,
everywhere and nowhere
aged, diminished,
deceptively dynastic,
is holy as a mountain,
solemn as a shrine.
II.
Painted house in the earth,
soil that protects from cold and heat,
the well-watered basin of beginnings.
For all those eras
the city grew in clay and lime,
the markets, the granges,
the circular oratorios,
the stores of turquoise and mica,
the reed flutes and dog’s teeth and nopales.
To you, the worthy ancestor sun returns,
before the hour that reveals its green illumination
over temporary ceilings of wood.
Emerging to the sky
only for dancing,
knees raised high to the inviolable mountains;
before the feathered Chichimecas
arrived with trade goods:
shells like childless hearts,
copper serpent heads,
macaw plumes that muster irregular rains.
Precinct of clan and feast,
of the crimson digging stick,
before the foreign epidemics,
before the presidios,
the cattle and plow.
III.
After the fires and revolutions,
my grandparents stood on their porch in the rain,
with the city’s transparency
between death and death.
Eventually, only my mother remained
without escaping death’s short waking;
and long-neglected oaths displayed
centuries of common ciphers.
Dwelling of primordial walls,
night falls over restless ages.
Day breaks over birds and trees.
Poet Charles Haddox (he/him) lives in El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, and has family roots in both countries. His poetry has appeared in a number of journals including Birdcoat Quarterly, Volume Poetry, and Vita Poetica.
Artist Ferris E. Jones is an award-winning, internationally published poet, artist, and screenwriter living in Manchester Connecticut. His work has appeared in print and online magazines. He is also the Author / Editor of ten poetry collections. You can learn more about Ferris Jones by visiting https://facebook.com/ferris.jones or www.inquisitionpoetry.com.
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