Take another piece of my heart...St. Valentine's Day Wishes

[msedano]

Every year I send love poems to friends. For years I sent just two by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. One year, a Chicana railed against my choices saying how gacho that I didn't have a Chicana Chicano poet to celebrate. I didn't.

Then I came across a fruitful anthology, regretfully bearing the "Hispanic" label that drives me into paroxysms of despair. But within that collection a gem stood out. Absochingaolutely stupendous. I hope Ina Cumpiano's piece hits you right between the heartbeats as it hit mine.

I put these three poems out with a musical accompaniment at my website, http://readraza.com/7val.htm. Please visit for the full realization my annual wishes for you and those you love, regardless of their reciprocation. Which is the point of the first one, que no? These are poems from broken hearts. I hope yours is long since mended. Better, I hope you'll understand these without benefit of personal experience.

If you've not a mind to visit http://readraza.com/7val.htm, ni modo. Here are my 2007 Valentine's Day wishes for you of the DU Latino/Hispanic grupo, and any friends with whom you'll share:

Happy Valentine from me to you.

mvs

WHEN YOU ARE OLD
WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

--William Butler Yeats, 1893

SWEETHEART, do not love too long,
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.
All through the years of our youth
Neither could have known
Their own thought from the other's,
We were so much at one.
But O, in a minute she changed-
O do not love too long,
Or you will grow out of fashion
Like an old song.

--William Butler Yeats, 1904

Metonymies / Ina Cumpiano

1
LAST JULY, they loosened their grip, let go--
plum, sweet plum--until the grass
was bloody with the warm flesh. Months later
the finches, purple fruit, hide in what's left of leaves
so that only when they fly off,
when the branches bounce back to true
is their presence known. They will not outstay
the leaves, the thin white light disclosing
those empty hands, the tree, against the sky.
2
This trip south, the egret questions the lagoon:
the white curl of its own back is the answer.
No matter how many times I return, this shallow inlet
to the sea will be here; and the egret, long gone,
will grace it with presence.
In "The Blind Samurai" the camera zooms
to the old man's clever ear: a double metonymy
that links our deafness to his danger. By the time
we catch on--snap, snap, footsteps
in the underbrush--
he has done battle and
bandits litter the forest like cordwood.

3
The camellia loses its head
all at once; it does not diminish
petal by petal
so for weeks the severed blossom lingers
as moist as pain, at the foot of the bush.

4
If the police ordered me to evacuate,
what would I take with me?
Baby pictures, computer disks, the silver,
proofs of birth? The sun
would hang like old fruit until the smoke
gathered it in. Then: night in day, sirens,
and knowing that whatever I took
would hold in its small cup
everything I had ever lost.
So if the police ordered me to evacuate during a firestorm,
I would write your name on a slip of paper,
light it, and--
in those few hurried moments allowed me--
watch it burn, brush the ashes into an envelope
which I would seal and keep with me, always.

from The Floating Borderlands, Twenty-five Years of U.S. Hispanic Literature.
Ed. Lauro Flores. Seattle: UofW Press, 1998, pp. 390-391



Valentine features Coatlicue, MUSEO NACIONAL DE ANTROPOLOGÍA, Mexico DF. foto msedano

[EFerrari]

1. "This dream itself had all my thought and love." -- The Circus Animals Desertion

:hug: to you and to our forum.

[autorank]

2. Nice paean to St. Valentino

Very nice selection. Yates is just fine...just refer them to La Bloga, the new arbiter of literary taste.

Thought I'd drop by with a couple of friends for some punch and cookies. They won't eat much.




Looks like you've got some classy company already.

Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!1]

[Xipe Totec]

3. La Valentina

http://latinoartcommunity.org/community/Gallery/1910/ArtMus/Corridos/Valentina.html

Valentina, Valentina,
yo te quisiera decir
que una pasión me domina
y es la que me hizo venir.

Dicen que por tus amores
la vida me han de quitar,
no le hace que sean muy diablos
yo también me sé pelear.

Si es porque tomo tequila,
mañana tomo jerez,
si es porque me ves borracho
mañana ya no me ves.

Valentina, Valentina,
rendido estoy a tus pies,
si me han de matar mañana
que me maten de una vez.

Una pasión me domina,
y es la que me hizo venir,
Valentina, Valentina,
yo te quisiera decir.

Dicen que por tus amores
un mal voy a conseguir;
no le hace que sean el diablo,
yo también me sé morir,

Si es porque tomo tequila,
¡mañana tomo jerez!
si es porque me ves borracho,
¡mañana ya no me ves!

Valentina, Valentina,
rendido estoy a tus pies,
si me han de matar mañana
que me maten de una vez.