The rooster sings to the sun,
answering the call is the light that embraces all.
All at once the birds sing their own song.

Awaken by mother's sweet voice.
"It's time to go" she says.
She hands me a  green cubeta con maiz.
The corn's color is purple and white instantly
I fall in love with its kind
The cold blue morning gives me chills.
I carry the bucket to my grandmother's house.

With her mandil and her braided hair,
she sits by the comal making tortillas.
"Good morning abueltia" with a smile on my face.
"Good morning m'ija" she replies.
I keep walking carrying the heavy bucket.

A small room next to a store crowded with senoras.
Their rebozos around their heads and arms and buckets in hand.
I feel so small so young but inside I'm proud.
I wait in line as I greet and make small talk.
These ladies have the nicest smiles.

My turn, I grab my cubeta and proceed to the molino.
My arms are too little.
A lady approaches and helps me load the molino.
I watch in awe as the grains turn in masa.
I bend down and collect it.
"En una bolita" the lady tells me to shape it.
I nod and continue to make it.

Gray like the color of my grandma's hair.
soft like my mother's hand.
I fill the bucket with the masa.
I thank las senoras and head back to mi casa.

I hand the bucket to my mom who was milking la vaca.
She starts the comal and gets the cal.
Her hands slapping the masa like she was clapping.
Perfect big round warm tortillas.
I was a little girl that helped her make them.
A little girl that still remembers.

Are you aware
of the music you make, Cricket?
Can the grass be ticklish to your toes?
Tickled like trapped foes.

Toads and toad bumps.
Frogs salted on salted Slugs.
Creamer for the chocolate night,
Are you alive?

Sentimental over fingerprints,
my wings wandered
three centuries ago.
Where they went nobody knows.

Three lights captured in my eye:
one is the bedroom
one is the trumpet
one is the theatre

Hip bones have red suns.
Flowers crawl on skyscrapers.
Barns and bugs with spotted bellies.

Cracked a mirror on my foot,
wish it stayed the evening
and for supper.

Could have gone home
but instead, harvested Winter
in Mexico.

We recognize each other, the lost ones. In Mexico the orange flowers – flor de muertos - glow as soft lamps in the gloom, calling the lost dead home. We see the same glow – it’s a fire, but cold and slow - in the living lost. And so we know.

Mamacita hold me dearly under folds
of black hair where light can't shine I
feel the warmest with my nose
pulling deep breaths of floral shampoos

and hot mesoamerican corn tortilla
from the oven with pepper carnitas drifting
through cracks under locked bedroom
doorhandles, in the bed and under

an azetec starred quilt duvet between sunshine
brown arms with tiny black feminine hairs,
I think about dinnertime at seven
with my warm Mamacita and her cousins
and of all the caring people
L.A shared with me.

Neal Cassady
February 8 ,1926  -  February 4 , 1968
San Miguel D'Alene , Mexico

Dead from extreme exposure
Four days short of forty-two

Only fitting , next to a railroad track
He had many words to haul back

The wolf sleeps next to the silver rail
Howling at a silver moon that fell

I see here he drove a ******* Cadillac
Through the San Francisco streets

With the top down
Smiling free , it was meant to be

Life is a quasar

Xitlali, el lucero,
me alumbra el sendero,
la luz del valle de Anáhuac emigra,
calmada Tenochtitlán.
El otro valle: Mictlán
por debajo vibra.

Matinal escena
de caracol y arena.
Irrepetible accidente natural,
briosa costa musical.
Lejos del Ahualulco,
bahía de Acapulco.

Granos de una planta alta
que al paladar exalta.
¿A qué otros placeres su espiga invita?
Pasas, nuez y pepita,
miel, alegría y encanto,
barra de amaranto.