El Peregrino
Aristeo Brito, Jr.

Aztlán the promised land of the Chicanos.

Immense reservoir for the rain of stars.
Fire and sun!
Emerald fields, azure sky.

Aztlán is the horizon of crystalline magic

which mates the earth to heaven
How enchanting is heaven’s burning passion!
How the clouds glow with its heat!
How cold the moon!

Aztlán is the alpha of the four winds,

Where heaven and earth are one,
Its god is the sun marching westward on blue peaks,
Its beauty is crimson by the cold silver of the moon.
through a mirage of crystal
through its beautiful reflections
The Chicano marches on
He runs enchanted toward pure waters
and from the well he takes the darkness of the night.

Slowly moving through a trackless path

The boy turns the mist red.
With his sacrificing feet
without the cricket’s song, without the owl’s lantern,
The mountain path is lost among the green
The icy waters of the moon feed the pilgrim and he trembles.

-Mother, my feet bleed, but they don’t hurt,

the moon cuts, but I don’t feel.
My cry rents the air, but I don’t hear…
Oh! The road is lost in the night!

-Sleep my child, and rest

Heaven will take care of that you always have the best…
And the boy returns to sleep to the smile of the on
soon the cook crows and the city lady hides

Aztlán returns at dawn to a baptism of dew.

Bring a serenade of birds for the child who awakes.
Lovely flowers give new life to the Chicano’s land
Yet….

-Mother, I could not sleep, a woman followed me…

- Sleep my child and rest. . .

Mommy, my hands are cold, my body is chilled.

Heaven will take care that you always have the best…

Mami, I raise my eyes to heaven, but they are heavy on my soul…

O’er fields, O’er the land, in the wind
Sadness is foretold.
The skies in smoke, gun powder, and rifles,
Terror is grey in the pelt of dogs,
Shattered are the windows of the soul
To stench of incense, of factory, or of death,
The fields answer with a black hue,
A hue that twists the vines in pain,
Hats explode through the fists of a man,
And in the desert, the saguaro,
The sentinel who drinks the pungent wine of tears,
In the other arid lands
There are strokes of mea culapin in the depths of oil wells,
Hammer blows on the bones of the dead…
Slow the steps, funeral march, a song for the pilgrim.

Peace, Silence, the boy bites his cry.

Aztlán is lost in a haze.
No mother!
Aztlán is not lost! It affirms itself in US.
Aztlán is the bosom the feels, that cries,
that fights and dreams.

It’s Earth and Heaven with stretching

hands out to brothers.
Aztlán is in the soul of our Chicanos!

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