CRUZANDO AGUA CON INMIGRANTES

 

CRUZANDO AGUA CON INMIGRANTES

A LA JARDÍN ALDEA EN LAS CORDILLERAS

--Donde las vidas de los hombres arden

Jorge Luis Borges

Crossing water with immigrants

to the garden village in the mountains,

three young men (just out of high school?),

sit on the back of the boat in open air, facing

the immigrant community we’re traveling

with, obscuring our view of the shoreline.

Everyone, even the young men on the boat,

are getting away from it all. I watch

for a while, while awareness asks me

to address the obstruction. I don’t

know how to say this with all there is

to see...and this is enough, the one coming

forth, I get it, he says, quietly addressing

his companions. This beautiful

beginning. Karen and I wear our

yellow t-shirts, AbriendoCaminos 2023.

We’ve been accompanying Latinos

making community for a long time.

How we become each other.

On the backs of these shirts,

Ustedes son la sal de la tierra.

The notebook is a prayer to forgotten worship.

We’re a group of 28 this year, small,

coming out of Covid. Some years

we’ve been over 200. Karen and Luz

made the t-shirts. Our role ceremonial

now that we’re older.

The boat ride crossing Lake Chelan

takes three and a half hours.

What comes up crossing water comes up on its own.

Para salir a la superficie puede ser liberación y peligro

Y por eso cruzamos el agua para las montañas

Todo que es pesada caída cruzando agua.

The heaviness in the deepest lake descends in dark waters

We make one stop on the way to the lake.

Karen packed her support socks in her suitcase.

Maintain circulation and remember your practice.

Karen is one with the ancestors.

The stop costs us eight minutes.

We’re not racing to meet the boat this time.

We’ve seen it leave us behind.

Out back in sunshine, Lady of the Lake

carries us through glacial waters.

Karen says, I wasn’t prepared for the heat.

I have lotion in my mochila

and rub it on her arms and back.

We didn’t think we could make this trip.

A half century crossing this lake.

Karen descending on foot

when the bus broke down

before delivering twin daughters.

Stroke and fall.

Come to El Salvador, Medardo says,

You’ll write the best poems of your life.

Diana and Francisco in diapers.

The abrecaminos travel from Sacramento.

The abrecaminos from Wapato, La Casa Hogar.

They took us in. This garden

grand enough, centers

in songlines, east of nothing.

A mother and her son before us

on the deck play with toy trucks.

Jim Bodeen

6 August 2023