FASTING: Day Two - "Coffee" Poem for Acteal, Dec. 22, 1997

"Coffee" - For Acteal, 12/22/97
One reason I'm boycotting Christmas this year. Posted on Day Two of a three day fast -- for love, peace, justice and dignity for all. And, for something to eat.


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Coffee



I.

In Guatemala the black buzzard
has replaced the quetzal
as the national bird. The shadow
of a man glides across the countryside,
over the deforested plantations; a death
cross burnishes history into myth
as it scours the medicinal land into coffee;
burial mounds that could be sites
of unexcavated knowledge hold only
blasted feathers and the molding bones
of freedom. Golden epaulets glint
in the fluorescent offices, crystal
skulls shine in the eyes of the man
with the machete, within the site
of an AK-47. Under the rubble
of the ruling class, a human heart
beats in the palm, the tumba of ritual mercy
drums in the thunder clap, a hurricane wind
sounds the concha. In Quetzaltenango, foreign
interests plot the futures of Mayan hands
and Incan gold. While on Wall Street,
the black sludge of a people trickles through
cappuccino machines like hissing snakes.


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Woodcut by René Arceo for Poetas y Pintores Exhibit

~ Lorna Dee Cervantes