POETRY

These poems were written by Man Olivera while he was in Chiapas, Mexico. Chiapas is home to the Zapatistas-an indigenous-based rebel movement that had an armed uprising in 1994 and still battles the Mexican government to this day.

Silvio
Chiapas, Mexico, 1998.

Tamarindo hair,
Mountain trail eyes,
Rainy season smile: Silvio,
Running around a Spanish fountain
filled with albino goldfish,
perfumed with peaches, oranges, pruned roses.
Water lilies drift -unnoticed-
Towards pink, purple tulips.
Silvio chases morning.

Innocence is rain in July,
Brown doves with Terracotta eyes,
A child who learns to walk in
The sanctuary of a Spanish courtyard.
"Silvio, be careful,"
there's a revolution in the mountains;
In San Cristobal de las Casas
And surrounding provinces
I've seen records of its victims,
And pictures posted of rebels wanted.
"Run, Silvio, Run,"
unlike gold fish swimming in circles,
life's a revolution of morning:
each dawn awakening a child's mind
to serve in a decorated army.

Endangered Flames
Chiapas, Mexico, 1998.

Flames are always fighting;
fighting to stay alive:
flaring-swelling-leaping-
jumping-rolling-running-
running from one log to another,
always struggling to stay alive;
like the indigenous of Mexico
and the rest of the Americas,
running from one mountain to another,
searching for a place to sustain life.
I wonder do they know
They are beautiful,
Having me hypnotized for hours,
Thinking of everything,
And thinking of nothing;
Nothing complicated,
Just the delicate beauty of a fire
flickering on the edge of extinction.
I think I'll add another log
And keep the fire burning;
The flames flaring.

Viva Trinidad
Chiapas, Mexico, 1998.

Trinidad is dead;
At the end of a hard day's work,
Coming from his milpa field,
A gang of Chinchulines ambushed him
On the road leading to the river.
He never made it to the water;
His ankles never got wet
And on that fateful evening;
Neither did he throw cool
River water on his face,
As field laborers are known to do,
Washing of the day's milpa dust
And jungle sweat with their paliacate.

Trinidad is dead;
And the Chinchulines pulled him from a few-
Amount and faces known,
Trinidad being their neighbor.
There were a few words, pushes, and shoves,
And then swung machetes found his bones.
Up and down mountains
And into the valley
Trinidad's blood soaked the crooked road;
Across a guarded river
And all the way to his dirt floor home
Trinidad's blood flowed.

Trinidad is dead.
Danella, his daughter,
Was the first to know.
Rosa, her mother,
Working in her thatched roof kitchen
Flattening tortillas and green plantains,
Ran and held her daughter.
Still, the child cannot speak,
And neither do their neighbors.
Trinidad is dead,
Murdered by a gang of Chinchulines
Hired as henchmen.
None of them man enough
To carry Trinidad's load,
Or work his milpa field .

Trinidad-dedicated husband to Rosa,
Proud father of Danella,
Older brother of Miguel,
A neighbor and friend
To the people of Territorrio Rebelde-
Dead.

Viva la Revolution!
Viva el Territorrio Rebelde!
Viva Trinidad!