HER UPANISHAD

HER UPANISHAD

If it were here and whole, the heart/ would think this was a nest. ---Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 02-22-12

 

Abuela*, dear soul and headstrong,

Asked me to bury her sitting down:

Must be where the limestones met

With the road, so I could take the bus. 

The bus to where? To meet with Jose

Who has been waiting all this time. 

When he left with the conquistador*

On the galleon, he would sew for them.

Even today was no different. She must

Answer her own questions. No one.

No one knows how long I waited.

There is a bench at the iglesia.* Ours.

We met there on a Misa de Gallo,*

He promised we would have Pascuas.*

As long as the pew was there. Burned.

They came, los barbaros *, burned it.

No one built the church again. No one.

I will not be buried there, hijo. Nunca.*

No lying down for me. Must be ready

to move when Jose will take me home.

She turned a hundred-three that day,

but reminded me to bury her sitting.

Lest I forget. If I kept my word, would

grandfather really have taken her home?

Would the bus have stopped for her,

terno, panuelo,* and all, quietly sitting?

On a stone grave among the limestones?

She would insist: It is my nest, Don Jose.

--- Albert B. Casuga

02-23-12

*Abuela – grandmother; conquistador – the Spanish colonizer; iglesia – church; Misa de Gallo – midnight mass; Pascuas – Christmases; los barbaros – the Japanese and American colonizers; Nunca – never. terna -- ball dress; panuelo -- mating scarf.