Campesinas

Aquarius 9/10/94, per Sydney Omarr:

Emphasize authority, confidence, passion.  Moon position highlights ability to take over.  Stay close to what happens.

The Amazon rebel leaders,

drunk with small victories,

long-haired and loose in dusty guerrilla pajamas,

walk down from mountain strongholds.

They come across the plains to the colonial capitol

on the invitation of generals in double-breasted uniforms,

to negotiate a new order.

Late on a late-summer afternoon,

careful agreement brings them together

in a shaded arcade near the center of town,

where a fountain whispers in the dry air.

A dark-eyed barman brings iced drinks,

then fades back into the murals.

A colonial quiet pervades,

the accustomed lie of civility.

The false peace of hereditary power,

like perfume over a carrion stench,

brings on rage and pleasure

in the revolutionaries,

which they carefully mask.

The emissaries exchange

the wary pleasantries of close neighbors

who have lost blood to each other.

Emerging from shadowy corners,

clerks bring out treaty papers white as shrouds.

The rebels think of their mothers

to keep from killing again.

Unquenched, the delegations move inside,

warily sitting at one table to eat.

The knives flash in the meat,

opening hearts to disclose the war still burning.

Evening, evening darkens the congress:

negotiations cease for the night,

without a plan for resumption.

Leaving the oasis of the compound,

unsated travelers pass through iron gates,

and take the dusty road away

From the gleaming capitol,

minds weighted with

unlifted oppression.

In the dark cantina,

mariachis thump a revolution’s heartbeat.

Cervezas go down hot throats like cold river stones.

Why does victory taste of dust, defeat?

We cannot hate our enemies;

we only want them gone.

We want our wildness

where they have their cold order,

our children free in the beautiful streets

of our stolen country.

The people made us heroes

when we found our dignity together;

but the ambassadors beguiled us

with the confoundment of law

and left us naked.

Will they never tire

of the unvarying tautness of the reins,

the hard knots in their fingers,

the icy rule of fear?

In the corner, the bandsmen rest their guitars,

pushing back their black hats to take a break,

conchos lightly clinking like near-forgotten complaints.

The beautiful ladies whisper requests

for songs gay and sad,

and revolutionaries mourn inevitable losses.

                                                    Claremont, 9/94