RIO GRANDE |
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It could end a hundred other ways besides
calmly conjoining, each far worse than another to con- template: Under the breeze in the trees, in the quaking aspen, high in Colorado's hills, a river begins, flows south. In New Mexico they still speak Spanish flu- ently, frequently the fathers speak no English, have pi- ety and opinions, strong opinions, convictions about God, penitence, enforced by guns and vicious chil- dren. Jus- tice in their hands does not come under the law of the land. The Sangre de Cristo mountains shed blood o- ver the tillers, the toilers who have nothing; but faith that God's suffering is their right in the knife-sharp, ice-like air. They crucify one of their own, each year. So it is said. And the kids wear bright tattoos across their chests: "Born to Die" and force motorists over the edge of cliffs. Lacking motorists, they challenge each other, riding bi- cycles into ether. Sometimes coming back crippled, sometimes not at all. As for the cru- cified, they put his shoes at his front door. And return to time and vio- lence, wresting with souls in the dark night under old ado- be walls or tin roofs or diamond-cutting-heart-deep stars, draining blood through interior crawl spaces of sorrow and se- dition. When they have gone, what will it matter? Christ's blood will be propitiated. Truth will be as the truth was. The river cuts cataracts, flows placidly under the cottonwoods, gurgles with the wind, flows from the mountains, spreads across the plains, dissipates in the gulf, joins the salt in the sea, cachinnates up into the bright blue sky. |
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jhaag@u.washington.edu
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