September Senryū ~ 2012

O orange harvest moon | why do you bring such longing | for him or winter

our rights slip through hands | people shake their heads resigned | we lift our voices 
| shouting you can't take our rights | they are not yours to swindle

people don't want to suffer | though wanting is fear | of not having

but they don't get it | less is more doesn't compute | in our "buy" culture

no more star gazing | purple skies too full of moon| on yesterdays gone

nothing can stop her | only she can brake herself | re-imagine life

first day of falling | into another season | reasons to stand sure

the two who are | one lives in Aiye | other in Orun |

both sacred twins journeyed | to market no'ne stayed home

her face always in books | or screen blue back lit | you'll find her there lost |

in a world of words seeking | illusive as butterflies

she was born spirit line | a "mistake" that got left in | strong

our words not a ruse | poetry as lies to be used | to get ahead

a tsunami cloud | resembled a mountain range | covered in new snow |

hovered on the edge | of my childhood lake

if a writer falls | in love with you | you'll never be forgotten

a pastel party | going down up in heaven | as Spirits rejoice

resist urges | to vote for the lesser of | evils who are twins

fear is a liar | bullies win through our silence | the truth shall prevail

I can not pretend | that monsters do not exist | they live among us

leaves unravel spring | summer's a lush coat of green | fall life's teeth chew through | 

masticating to the bone | winter the long sleep waiting

there are many Septembers | on the eleventh | we remember those |

who died for the empire | who died for the lies

she wants it to rain | in ropes falling from blank skies | to cool the harsh day

ancestor maíz | corn in every color | grows seven feet tall

we break easily | sometimes there's no other way | to end the madness |

we leave reality | head towards a way to be healed

she could have been his | in an eye-blink eternity | star-crossed lovers |

oceans that could never merge | what beauty trying

she tells her mother | I hope you won't forget me | she forgets what's said |

daughter cries for all the loss | then in her childhood and now

workers the backbone | bring food from fields to tables | build envisioned worlds |

mothers raise nations of us | fathers the finishing touch

medicine stories | passed on in blood memory | in ancestors' voices

what is unseen | is later unearthed by light | shed on the darkness

Copyright © 2012 Odilia Galván Rodríguez. All Rights Reserved.

Havana hurricane journal pages

Havana hurricane journal pages

yo soñe la Habana
con una nueva cara
toda pintadita
como una novia
saliendo con su primer pretendiente
radiante con una esperanza
de gran amor

I dreamed Havana
with a new face
all made up
like a sweetheart
going out on her first date
radiant with hope
for a grand love

Sunday 7 September

All last night and all day today the television continues to broadcast all the civil defense plans to save lives first and then secure material holdings such as foodstuffs, hospitals, homes, schools, workplaces etc. There will be no work or school until the danger is passed.

Hurricane Ike is threatening to hit Guantanamo first and then it looks as though it will sweep across the entire island until it crosses us and goes back out into the gulf or heads towards the Atlantic. It's predicted to hit areas than no hurricanes have ever touched on the island and places that haven't seen a hurricane since long before the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, and unfortunately it will most probably hit places like Pinar del Rio and La Isla de la Juventud that were just devastated only 8 or so days ago. Places like Granma, Holguin, and Las Tunas that are not used to these threats are fastening down their cities and getting ready for what will be unleashed.

Everyone here is battening down the hatches too, we brought in the stove from the outside kitchen and put it into the tiny indoor kitchen. We bought some food, we were low since we haven't been here for two months, and other provisions like candles and have filled up lots of plastic bottles with fresh drinking water. People all over the neighborhood are cutting down branches, nailing and tying down anything that could fly into windows or doors or cause major damage. People are putting X's of tape over their windows, buying candles, food and preparing for the worst. People seem very calm but definitely determined to not be caught off guard. The neighborhood CDR (Committee in Defense of the Revolution) has organized who will stay inside and guard the grammar school on the corner and workers of the different markets in the area have secured their work places.

I thought Angel was going to bring the dogs inside but he says they have their secure area in the outdoor kitchen. My god daughter who is here from California, and who's never been in a hurricane says that when she gets back home she is going to tell her spoiled dog Pepsi, the next time he does something naughty like pee in the house, that he should be glad he wasn't born in Cuba where dogs don't even get to come in during a natural disaster! To which I thought yes, here most people do not have the luxury to treat their dogs like people and at the same time I feel worried for Johnny and Casey our dachshund and stafford but I am sure if the storm gets too bad Angel will let them inside...

I want Gavilan to get here safely he is supposed to arrive tomorrow and the way things are looking he will be stuck in Mexico, and who knows for how long. He is coming with Charley so they can keep each other company until this storm blows over.

8 September

Getting ready for the passing of Hurricane Ike. It's passed Guantanamo, Santiago, Holguin, Las Tunas, Granma, Camnaguey and it's headed towards Sancti Espiritu, and Santa Clara before heading here...

According to the news bulletins it should be hitting Havana anytime in the early eveing. Gavilan's plane takes off from SFO tonight and he's scheduled to arrive in the p.m. tomorrow but that looks impossible now, I just hope that the damage here is mild compared to other places so that he will not get stuck for too many days in Mexico. I just want him to call so that he can call mom and let her know we are okay here...

We are in official hurricane alert - the highest. I already mentioned the things we did to get prepared... the winds and water have already begun. Next the electricity will go and hopefully the gas won't be shut off but we brought in the small propane tank and have a hose to hook the stove up to it-just in case. I'm going to make tea even though it is hotter than heck in here.

My nerves are jangly.

9 September

consuming darkness
pierced by howling..winds blind birds
lashing night with rain

fierce machete winds
lashing dark green the drenched streets
deep quiet howling

modern noises cut
void of electricity
buzzing bees broken

morning:

All night the wind whipped the dark green canopy of trees on streets drowned by the hurricane droning past with its blades of sharpened wind. Sleep was illusive and fear gripped me deep in my guts low enough to seem non-existent, but there all the same, like when one has to be up early so as not to miss an important event or a flight, there is anxiety while at the same time one has to act against the preoccupation or the fear of that thing happening that is undesirable. I slept but it was not a worthy sleep.

The windows seemed they would rattle out of their frames and the streets filled with murky waters coming in ropes, too fast to be drunk by the street's drainage system.

I am worried about my son.

Iyawo Ibis called this a.m., the phone is still working, we talked to Orbelito for about 20 minutes which is incredible for a child that is not even three years old yet and he got very angry when his grandmother tried to take the phone from him. He was talking about a crocodile, Nemo, spaghetti, batman etc. He is talking like crazy and even says, "oye" and "coño", words he hears from the adults no doubt. When he said "oye!" to me I said, "Love, my name is madrina, not "oye". So then he said "madrina" and kept jabbering away, very everyday in the middle of this disaster. They still have electricity over in their neighborhood and Ibis gave us more details on the sad news about Celia and Abel Hart Santa Maria's fatal car accident on Sunday night. What a terrible tragedy and loss two young people with a lot to offer this country. How strange - I was supposed to finish a translation of one of her articles that Walter gave me before I left Mexico, now it will have to wait until this is over and I can get to a working computer.

Ibis also tells us that Ike is going to pass Pinar Del Rio at around 11 a.m. so the heaviest rains and winds should hit us then...

Hawk was to have arrived today, I just hope he calls.

Angel has made some coffee, I can smell it brewing in there, I should get out of this bed. I was listening to an audio book, "Killing Che" and it makes me hate the cia - even more than I already did - if that is possible...10 September

Wet, windy, still no electricity. Talked to Walter about the death of Celia Hart and her brother it happened on Sunday night. A State funeral was held in their honor on Monday, so sad. Walter says to go over to JR to work if I want. I still have Celia's article to finish. Apparently Arlene performed the official eulogy since she studied with both of them. Both Celia and Abel leave children. I remember when I was little I always thought that mothers couldn't die when their children were young, of course at the time I didn't know that my own grandmother died when dad was only 5 and her other three children were 10, 8 and 7! Death is inevitable but its affects ripple out hard and long in some cases.

Doesn't look like they will open the airport today.



bright clothes on wash ropes
strung from battered balconies
hoping for no rain

troubled waters churn
agitated sky kicking
up a new windstorm

new rains drown the crops
weakened by the savage winds
that thin  the peoples  hope


reportando de la isla de las posibilidades

PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

I can not get it through my head why we as a nation would prefer war to peace.

Can anyone explain this to me in any real way so that I can wrap my head around it and agree.

I do not think any mother in this country wants her child dead, can't want her child killing other peoples children either.

This is a call for all mothers of the United States of America, for all the mothers of the world to stand up and say, "Basta Ya! Peace in the Middle East, Peace in the World!"

Ase, Ase, Ase O!

Back in the Bay

I'ts been awhile, I've missed being in the Bay Area, the only place I would live in the US these days...

It's been cold, the days awaken with frost on the roof tops. I don't remember when I've seen this here -- if ever and I've been living here off and on since the early '80's but then again back then I was too busy to notice much...the pressure of an 8 hr. + job, a young baby to raise myself etc.

There's been so much going on and it seems all anyone can focus on is Vice President Cheney shooting his hunting buddy. The poor man seemed embarrassed to have gotten hurt, and for all the fuss over his having been almost killed, after all the man had a heart attack. Strange.

When the news media is so totally taken by something like this, those people who are into conspiracy theories always ask, "What is it they don't want us to be focusing on?" And there is so much that they could be talking about instead. Like the UN asking for the closure of the base at Guantanamo (Gitmo), and the claims by US officials that it's basically a summer camp for terrorists -- nothing going on there, no torture etc. Or how about another natural disaster - this time in the Philippines, or the war in Iraq, possible war in Iran, the new government in Palestine, the fact that they want to continue spying on US citizens but can't figure out who are good or bad terrorists -- aren't they all bad? But I will leave these topics for now.

I am having a crisis of faith and want to focus my energy on that, seeing as how I am at a crossroads...or maybe at a bridge...more on that another day.

regards to all.

Olly Olly All Out Are Free - Part of the Coming Up Chronicles

I couldn't sleep last night, stayed up until around 3:30 a.m. working on some writing, then finally I tried reading so I could fall asleep but to no avail. I had to take some CA poppy tincture to get to sleep. I can only take a few drops otherwise I wake up the next day foggy and with a headache. But it works well and on pain too. I really mean it when I say that this getting old stuff is not for the weak.

Today I went to the beach to take some offerings to Yemaya that we'd put up in the shrine special for my Ocha birthday and for her feast day which are back to back, the 6th and the 7th. I loved the way the watermelon kept rolling back up on to the shore I told Angel that it was her playing with it. The surf was kind of rough and the place was deserted, not like just a week ago when the last of the summer crowds still filled the beaches. But this week summer is over, it's back to school and vacations are officially over.

I used to love summers as a kid -  I still do, it's my favorite time of the year and even though I worked every one of them after I turned 15 there was something about this time of the year that was thrilling and I never wanted it to be over.

Chicago summer nights were great, I grew up on the southside - moved there when I was 2. When my mom first settled out of the migrant farm worker life, a few years after my dad got home from his tour in Korea we moved from Texas to Chicago and lived in an apartment on Cottage Grove, we then moved to some apartments on 63rd and Dorchester St., then one on Dante, then to a house on 73rd and Woodlawn. When I was 10, after my parents split up, we moved to the projects - my mom and us four kids. I have lots of stories about the southside and maybe someday I will get around to writing my favorites down.

Our time to do some serious playing in the neighborhood was after dinner dishes were washed and our mothers let us go out for a few hours before calling us in for the night. Chicago had a 10 pm curfew for people under 18 so that was usually around the time we all had to go in.

Us neighborhood kids would hang out at the various little play areas that the CHA (Chicago Housing Authority) put up to supposedly keep us busy and out of trouble. Mostly we sat on the benches and shot the breeze or played hide and seek or some similar games. I can't recall the name of the one that is like hide-and-seek but played in big groups - two sides - with equal numbers, and the object is to captureevery onee of the people on one side or the other. To capture someone, you not only had to discover their hiding place but you also had to touch them.

Once you were found by someone on the opposite team they took you to jail. People from your team who were still free, could come and rescue you from jail if they could. There were look outs from each side that kept close enough to the jail to keep those already captured inside while trying not to get captured themselves. Their job was to also capture anyone who tried to come to rescue of the opposite team's members.

Trying to rescue a fellow player on your team was considered a really heroic act because of course it meant that you were giving up your secure hiding place and risking capture. It was not easy to rescue folks either, because those in the jail from the opposite side would always start yelling for their team members to hurry up and come squash the rescue attempt.

I also think there was a rule that you could only rescue one person at a time. There were certain boundaries within which we could hide, and no one was supposed to go outside those boundaries of a few blocks. And it was definitely cheating to, say, go hide in your house just because you lived close to the play area - which was usually the place designated as the jail. That way the captured could sit on benches, swings or monkey bars and wait to be rescued or for the game to end.

Once, one of the littler kids went home to watch television because he said he thought the game was over, that was really a hoot because we just thought he had hidden really well! The projects I came up in had row houses, so we had lots of great hiding places - one could hide behind or in trees and bushes, in people's yards, behind garbage cans, in gang ways etc.

We had our strategies too, for look outs and fast runners to storm the jail. Sometimes four or five of us would rush the area to try and get out as many of our team members out as possible, which of course would become pandemonium because everyone would start yelling, running, grabbing, and trying to stop the rescue attempt. The other side would of course try to capture new people or recapture anyone who'd managed to escape.

One time the funniest thing happened both sides showed up at the jail at the same time attempting a big rescue and all hell broke loose, it was so crazy and confusing and we ended up arguing as to who had been captured, let out etc. We just decided it was better to start over.

If you were let out of jail and ran fast enough within the boundary area and could get yourself into a hiding place without being seen you could get away without being taken back to jail. I tell you this game could go on for hours, days and sometimes even weeks because we would remember who had been in jail from the night before and start right from there the next night. Sometimes we had up to twenty kids playing at the same time. We all had our favorite hiding places and it was great fun.

Of course this was when we were all pretty young, before people started hormoning out and becoming couples. Those summers were great and I don't imagine there is any place in the US where kids can still play in big groups away from the adults the way we did back then. We were poor but we were happy and summer was the stuff of life!

Yes, we were playing a game where the object was to stay hidden and out of jail - shades of things to come in adulthood for some of us, but the other part, the thrilling part, was to save your team mates and make heroic attempts instead of staying safely hidden in your little niche. The people who did that were the ones who always held up the game because in the end we'd all have to call out "olly olly all in free" or whatever it was that we said, in order to let whoever was still out hiding know that almost all of us were in jail and we wanted to start over or stop the game.

Here is a poem to honor my few, but long years of life in Trumbull Park Homes and my for first love, you know who you are...

We Shadow Boxed
in the indigo
security lights
Projects we called
home while the moon
and stars smiled at
our milktooth love
because they knew
it was forbidding
like red-hot fire
burns we knew too
but were trying
our spotted wings
anyway your lips
were ruby fruit
rolled in zacate
thought our mother's
didn't have a clue
but they could smell
love in grass stained
clothes newly mowed
every radio
was playing our song

and for all you folks still out there - olly, olly, oxen free. olly, olly all out are FREE!

the photo above is courtesy of CHANGE - Chicago Housing Authority

(c) 2005

Yemaya's Day

Today the majesty and beauty of my mother Yemaya are celebrated. We ask her, the greatest mother of all, to embrace us - especially her children who are suffering due to another great tragedy that has befallen the people of Turtle Island, of the US of A - to give us her special blessings. We need hope, we need love and above all, we need good character to know how to go on, how to proceed, to help our brothers and sisters who need us.

At 6 p.m. eastern time 3 p.m. pacific time many Orisha priests and priestesses and other followers of African Traditional Religions and ways of life and those with indigenous worldviews will be taking a few moments to make special offerings and prayers for the survivors of hurricane Katrina. We especially pray for those who have yet to be rescued, for those who are afraid to ask for help for fear of being arrested, detained or deported back to their country of origin, and for those who are rescued but are in despair.

We pray for the dead that their spirits were delivered speedily into the arms of Olodumare. Iba'se...

Oh, mighty mother Yemaya we ask that you deliver our prayers to the highest.

Ire O!

(c) 2005

Women

a force to be
reckoned with
a cloudy day
turned hurricane
a 5.4 earthquake
upsetting a ballgame
a wind whipping
fire storm
threatening to burn
mountains
to the sea
we can be
all this


This is what comes to me after meeting with our Tuesday night group of women writers. It takes me about 45 minutes to drive home and in that time I think of all we have written in group and all that was shared. The power in our conversations about life, about our partners, our children etc. Its big and then its not. After all it's what women have been doing since time immemorial. In the red tent, in the moon lodges, in the fields, on the assembly lines, sitting together at the kitchen table. The difference is, we as women writers are leaving our words for the people coming up, for the people we don't know personally but who may read our words in a book or on-line.

We span in age from 19 to 50+ and it's awesome the range of emotions that I feel sitting there listening to the magic we make in those lines that come through us. There is safety in writing with people who know how to bleed... With women, who every month lose a part of a possible future and some of us have been doing this for the better part of half a century. We do this because we can, because it's part of our divinity -- the possibility of continuing life on this planet. A force to be reckoned with...

(c) 2005