Jesús at the Rancho

At La Canoa rancho, grass is green as early peas.
Night clouds grow on the mountains.
Twenty huts root on the hillside, fences
crisscross fields and rock. Men ride horses
to slanted crops of corn and pintos.
Now and then a cow enters a woman's kitchen.
She shoos him away with a stick.
Burros wear logs around their necks
so they will not run away.
Few people ever leave unless to find a cow
or gather cactus. Missionaries
bring clothes and water, sugar, flour, coffee.
Children are born when they are ready.
The dead are buried with prayer and corn.

Mexican census does not count the families
in the ranchos, children of the last revolution,
their skin the rich soil of years.
Families in the ranchos do not count Mexico.
La Canoa is where God lives, in a mud hut
with six who share tortillas
and beans around a handmade cloth.
Jesús is a boy named Chuy,
his black skin and eyes the Aztec
of his father, his father, his father.

from Los Hijos (Longleaf Press, 2002)
Copyright © 2002