Hakim Bellamy

Prize Poet of New Mexico
(listen here)

http://hakimbe.com/post/25310612872/the-official-poem-commissioned-by-the-city-of?og=1&fb_action_ids=10150895072537266&fb_action_types=tumblr-feed%3Apost&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=457116589995 

To: New Mexico

From: Hakim Bellamy

100 Years of Corridos: A song for the New Mexico Centennial

In the 1st chapter

Of the Gospel

According to Anaya

Rudolfo writes

“All of the older people spoke only Spanish,

And I myself understood only Spanish.”

In English

Bienvenidos Albuquerque

I myself

Understand only English

In Dine

We speak many languages

But mean the same thing

And manana

Will be more of the same

Familia

Food

Fiesta

Forever

Come on and sing along

We’re going to

Familia

Comida

Fiesta

Forever

For 100 years B.C.

Before the Commodores

Before Lionel Ritchie

And for a 100 years more

We’ve farmed

Feasted and fixed cars

We’ve moved people

And mixed razas

We’ve got an appointment

With the curandera

As soon as we leave the doctors

A lust for livestock

Like chupacabras

Afraid of God

And the inexplicable

Dinosaur fossils

So in love with space

And the people who live there

That we speak Chewbacca

The 48th state

Admitted to the Union

We might as well have been The Moon

…of Endor

To our forefathers

With the oldest

And highest

State capital in the country

People on both coasts

Should look up to us

Instead of wondering

If they have to exchange their money

Before coming

Yes,

Dollars is our official currency too

And though

We don’t have much of it

Money can’t buy cultura

Our History Book

The King Alfonso Version

Is a canon

Of wars and peace

A Bible

Of you and me

That was written in Madrid

By missionaries and mestizos

We are men of magic

And women of wizardry

Who speak in spell and song

Wing words

And fly them like a flag

All yellow

Between red and green

Like a traffic light

Like the state question is

Hurry up

Or slow down

Never stop

All of the older people sung only corridos

However,

In those corridos…

Me?

I only heard gospel

Maybe it’s me

Maybe it’s a stage

But every time

I hear the clap of thunder

It sounds like a blessing

Every time

I hear the pitter, patter

Of the rain

It sounds

Like a round

Of applause

And even the monsoon roars

“Encore”

And the flash bloods

Flood

Our hearts

With love

One hundred

New Year’s Eves

Of trying to puncture precipitation

Where the sky never dies

And the clouds wear bulletproof vests

Where we perpetually live

In the shadow of a hot air balloon eclipse

We are not a city

That speaks “Good Morning”

We are a city that speaks

Mass Ascension

Like Grandpa

Only spoke Spanish

While he was drinking

Buenos Dias

Like Grandma

Only spoke Latin

When she was praying

Buenas Noches

Where water

Is so sacred and scarce

That we pot it

In puddles

On our flat roofs

Pool it

In vestibule stoups

Of steepled temples

Where pigeons swirl and roost

Pond it

In mountaintops

On our not-so-flat horizons

We bottle it

In our bodies

And set fire to it

In our forests

Where it sounds like

Acequias babble “amen”

And bosques

Smell like baptisms

Where the rain

Doesn’t speak any language

It only understands dance

And sometimes

We miss it so much

We need TWO rainbows

To promise us

It is coming back

After thousands of years

Of owners

For this little piece of hacienda

It’s been us as tenants

Together

Roommates for the past hundred

Call it a trust

Call it a Zia-shaped symbol for eternity

Over our right ring finger

Call it the interconnectedness of cultures

Call it married to each other

Speak now or forever hold your “chisme”

We are

Actions speak louder than wordsmiths

Storytelling rituals

We don’t speak Project Runway

We Cowboy Cosmopolitan

Urban Traditional

Where our children

Dare not say or see

Cucui or La llorona

But are lucky

Santa speaks Spanglish

And has a sweet tooth

For leche y biscochitos

Where birthdays

Are miracles

And each one

Has a spirit

Holy Spirit

Or patron saint

Where we celebrate

100

Today

In the beginning

The Greatest Spirit

Created America

And the earth

And it was

Bueno

I don’t speak perfect English

Barely even speak passable Spanish

But it’s okay

Because there is no such thing

As “perfect English”

Except for the word

Nuevo Mexico

© Hakim Bellamy June 12, 2012