sábado, 28 de abril de 2018

The Woman at the Well

By Gary B. Swanson

         The door swung open, clattering against the wall, and the woman hurried in.
         A man rolled over on the bed, scowling in the sudden sunlight. "Where is your jar?" he asked. "I thought you'd gone for water."
         The woman's face glowed with the heat of the waning afternoon or was it something else? He couldn't tell.
         "I have no further need for water," she said breathlessly.
         He rolled his eyes. "You and your riddles!"
         She laughed. "I've seen the Messiah."
         The man looked at her more closely. "Have you indeed? You went out for water and you found the Messiah."
         "He is at Jacob's well."
         "Just sitting there passing the afternoon, is He?"
         The woman turned abruptly serious. "Don't mock me! I know what I've seen."
         "Why are you so sure that He is the Messiah?"
         "He knows my whole life. He knows of my marriages. He knows of you and me . . ."
         "Everyone in Sychar knows of you and me; there's nothing remarkable in that."
         "But no one else has known the desperation we've admitted only to each other the times we've clung together, weeping in the darkness."
         The man turned away. "You swore you would never tell anyone of that."
         She sat down next to him reached out and touched his shoulder. "I didn't tell Him; He told me. It seems He knows us better than we do ourselves. He knows what we want what we really want."
         "What do we really want?"
         "You will know that when you see Him."
         "I am not a religious man . . ."
         She took his hand and led him toward the door. "That is just the part that is most thrilling neither is He."


Insight, January 24, 1984

viernes, 27 de abril de 2018

Borderbus

By Juan Felipe Herrera
Por Juan Felipe Herrera

A dónde vamos where are we going
Speak in English or the guard is going to come 
A dónde vamos where are we going
Speak in English or the guard is gonna get us hermana
Pero qué hicimos but what did we do
Speak in English come on
Nomás sé unas pocas palabras I just know a few words
You better figure it out hermana the guard is right there
See the bus driver
Tantos días y ni sabíamos para dónde íbamos
So many days and we didn’t know where we were headed
I know where we’re going
Where we always go
To some detention center to some fingerprinting hall or cube
Some warehouse after warehouse
Pero ya nos investigaron ya cruzamos ya nos cacharon
Los federales del bordo qué más quieren 
But they already questioned us we already crossed over they
already grabbed us the Border Patrol what more do they want
We are on the bus now
this is all
A dónde vamos te digo salí de Honduras 
No hemos comido nada y dónde vamos a dormir
Where we are going I am telling you I came from Honduras
We haven’t eaten anything and where are we going to sleep
I don’t want to talk about it just tell them
That you came from nowhere
I came from nowhere
And we crossed the border from nowhere
And now you and me and everybody else here is
On a bus to nowhere you got it?
Pero por eso nos venimos para salir de la nada
But that’s why we came to leave all that nothing behind
When the bus stops there will be more nothing
We’re here hermana
Y esas gentes quiénes son
no quieren que siga el camión
No quieren que sigamos
Están bloqueando el bus
A dónde vamos ahora
Those people there who are they
they don’t want the bus to keep going 
they don’t want us to keep going
now they are blocking the bus
so where do we go
What?
He tardado 47 días para llegar acá no fue fácil hermana
45 días desde Honduras con los coyotes los que se – bueno
ya sabes lo que les hicieron a las chicas allí mero en frente
de nosotros pero qué íbamos a hacer y los trenes los trenes 
cómo diré hermana cientos de 
nosotros como gallinas como topos en jaulas y verduras
pudriéndose en los trenes de miles me oyes de miles y se resbalaban
de los techos y de los desiertos de Arizona de Tejas sed y hambre
sed y hambre dos cosas sed y hambre día tras día hermana
y ahora quí en este camión y quién sabe a dónde
vamos hermana fijate vengo desde Brownsville dónde nos amarraron
y ahora en California pero todavía no entramos y todavía el bordo
está por delante
It took me 47 days to get here it wasn’t easy hermana
45 days from Honduras with the coyotes the ones that – well
you know what they did to las chicas
right there in front of us so what were we supposed
to do and the trains the trains how can I tell you hermana hundreds
of us like chickens like gophers in cages and vegetables
rotting on trains of thousands you hear me of thousands and they slid
from the rooftops and the deserts of Arizona and Texas thirst and hunger
thirst and hunger two things thirst and hunger day after day hermana
and now here on this bus of who-knows-where we are going
hermana listen I come from Brownsville where they tied us up 
and now in California but still we’re not inside and still the border
lies ahead of us
I told you to speak in English even un poquito
the guard is going to think we are doing something
people are screaming outside
they want to push the bus back
Pero para dónde le damos hermana
por eso me vine
le quebraron las piernas a mi padre 
las pandillas mataron a mi hijo
solo quiero que estemos juntos
tantos años hermana
separados
But where do we go hermana
that’s why I came here
they broke my father’s legs
gangs killed my son
I just want us to be together
so many years hermana
pulled apart
Why?
Mi madre me dijo que lo más importante 
es la libertad la bondad y las buenas acciones
con el prójimo
My mother told me that the most important thing
is freedom kindness and doing good
for others
What are you talking about?
I told you to be quiet
La libertad viene desde muy adentro
allí reside todo el dolor de todo el mundo
el momento en que purguemos ese dolor de nuestras entrañas 
seremos libres y en ese momento tenemos que 
llenarnos de todo el dolor de todos los seres
para liberarlos a ellos mismos
Freedom comes from deep inside
all the pain of the world lives there
the second we cleanse that pain from our guts
we shall be free and in that moment we have to 
fill ourselves up with all that pain of all beings
to free them – all of them
The guard is coming well
now what maybe they’ll take us 
to another detention center we’ll eat we’ll have a floor
a blanket toilets water and each other
for a while
No somos nada y venimos de la nada
pero esa nada los es todo si la nutres de amor
por eso venceremos
We are nothing and we come from nothing
but that nothing is everything, if you feed it with love
that is why we will triumph
We are everything hermana
Because we come from everything.

Juan Felipe Herrera is a poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera was the United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017.

Richard Cory

By Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was richyes, richer than a king
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

domingo, 22 de abril de 2018

1+1+2 An Allegory

By Roger Balmer

         In a past age the village of Terrafirma was home to a very wonderful Man known to all as the Great Original Architect.  Basic to the beliefs He espoused and shared with others was the fundamental concept that one plus one equals two (1+1=2).  Unfortunately, this good Man met an untimely but necessarily tragic end to His existence in Terrafirma, but He left a group of His students behind, followers who made great sacrifices to share with as many of Terrafirma's inhabitants as possible the basic concept 1+1=2 and what it involved.  Schools were started everywhere and, in spite of persecution, flourished.
         Centuries passed and the village of Terrafirma waxed and waned in its prosperity and peace.  Life became more complicated and sophisticated; the inhabitants began either to neglect the basic concept 1+1=2 or to feel perhaps that they needed something a little more up to date in keeping with the new age in which they lived.
         There was, however, a small group of architects who looked upon the new thinking with dismay and sadness, and they had for the most part made great efforts to show in the construction of their buildings a personal living faith in the basic concept 1+1=2.  They knew it was a structurally sound principle and should never be abandoned, no matter how appealing the new thinking might appear.  And besides, the Founder of their architectural beliefs predicted one day the mighty earthquake should occur, which would lay waste virtually the entire city of Terrafirma.  It would make known eternally which buildings had their foundations constructed on the basic concept 1+1=2 and which did not.
         The group made attempts to enlighten and warn the population of the impending danger, and despite stiff opposition in some quarters and unbelievable apathy in others, they did gain two or three converts on occasion to their cause, but here and there they lost one or two also.
         Suddenly an unexpected and marvelous spurt in knowledge occurred.  Terrafirma became in a few short years unrecognizable, as science had provided the inhabitants with tools and machines that rendered their lives incomparably luxurious and leisurely.  The architectural schools, as a reflection of the changing society, began to modify their concepts and philosophies to fit into the new mold, and big new architectural schools with hundreds of thousands of students began springing up everywhere.  Those who still followed basic concept 1+1=2 set forth by the Great Original Architect became insignificant in size and influence in comparison with the new schools and with most of the old schools that were changing to be in step with the popular beliefs.
         One day the leading architect of one of the most prestigious schools in Terrafirma, a certain Dr. Heeza Ripoff, published a paper that set the city reeling.  He had invented a calculator that proved almost inconclusively that a new concept 1+1=3 was viable.  Also a new substance called Magic Glue had been developed that would hold together the new concept 1+1=3 in any practical application in construction one might wish to consider using it.  Overnight the new calculator and Magic Glue became the rage of Terrafirma.  The inhabitants bought them frantically, as they appeared to solve their architectural problems much as they desired them to be solved, and as an added incentive, they cost virtually nothing, or so it seemed.
         By now, those who followed the Great Original Architect's basic concept 1+1=2 were overwhelmed.  Most of them had fortified themselves with constant study and the practice of constructing buildings based on that concept, but the structures of Terrafirma as of the last few years were now virtually all built on the new concept 1+1=3 and Magic Glue.  In spite of their new-found dedication and worthiness, Terrafirma no longer accepted these old-line believers.  The solution to all the city's problems had apparently been discovered, and although building repairmen would still be needed for a while, eventually Terrafirma would be an architectural paradise, and all the buildings would have to be built based on the new concept 1+1=3 and Magic Glue.  Nothing else could be tolerated.
         One dark day, after lengthy and the most somber of deliberation, the mayor of Terrafirma and the city council, supported by findings worked out on Dr. Ripoff's little calculator and by the admonitions of the popular new Planning Commissioner (whose appearance strikingly resembled that of the Great Original Architect), decreed that all basic concept 1+1=2 buildings must be destroyed, as they proved a danger to Terrafirma and its structural stability.  The date was set for the execution of this decree.  Gangs of demolition experts and helpers were readied.  All Terrafirma prepared vigorously for the impending urban renewal.
         Then the mighty earthquake came.



Insight, September 28, 1976