Lorna Dee Cervantes - Poema para los Californios Muertos lyrics

Once a refuge for Mexican Californios . . . --PLAQUE OUTSIDE A RESTAURANT IN LOS ALTOS, CALIFORNIA, 1974 These older towns die into stretches of freeway. The high scaffolding cuts a clean cesarean across belly valleys and fertile dust. What a ba*tard child, this city lost in the soft llorando de las madres. Californios moan like husbands of the raped, husbands de la tierra, tierra la madre. I run my fingers across this bra** plaque. Its cold stirms in me a memory of silver buckles and spent bullets, of embroidered shawls and dark rebozos. Yo recuerdo los antepasados muertos. Los recuerdo en la sangre, la sangre fértil. What refuge did you find here, ancient Californios? Now at this restaurant nothing remains but this old oak and an ill-placed plaque. Is is true that you still live here in the shadows of these white, high-cla** houses? Soy la hija pobrecita pero puedo maldecir estas fantasmas blancas. Las fantasmas tuyas deben aquí quedarse, solas las tuyas. In this place I see nothing but strangers. On the shelves there are bitter antiques, yanqui remnants y estos no de los Californios. A blue jay shrieks above the pungent odor of crushed eucalyptus and the pure scent of rage.