Oppression

Is a question of strength,
of unshed tears,
of being trampled under,
and always, always,
remembering you are human.

Look deep to find the grains of hope and strength,

and sing, my brothers and sisters,

and sing. The sun will share

your birthdays with you behind bars,
the new spring grass

like fiery spears will count your years,

as you start into the next year;
endure my brothers, endure my sisters.

Choices
An acquaintance at Los Alamos Labs

who engineers weapons

black xd a mark where I live
on his office map.
Star-wars humor.
He exchanged muddy boots
and patched jeans
for a white interns coat
and black polished shoes.
A month ago, after butchering a gouged bull,
we stood on a pasture hill,
and he wondered with pained features
where money would come from
to finish his shed, plan alfalfa,
and fix his tractor.
Now his fingers
yank horsetail grass
he crimps herringbone tail-seed
between teeth, and grits out words,
Om gonna buy another tractor
next week. More land too.
Silence between us is gray water
let down in a tin pail
in a deep, deep well,

a silence
milled in continental grindings
millions of years ago.
I throw my heart
into the well, and it falls
a shimmering pebble to the bottom.
Words are hard
to come by, Would have lost everything
Ive worked for, not takin the job.
His words try to
retrieve
my heart
from the deep well.
We walk on in silence,
our friendship
rippling away.

A Daily Joy to be Alive

No matter how serene things
may be in my life,
how well things are going,
my body and soul

are two cliff peaks

from which a dream of who I can be
falls, and I must learn
to fly again each day,
or die.

Death draws respect

and fear from the living.
Death offers
no false starts. It is not
a referee with a pop-gun
at the startling
of a hundred yard dash.

I do not live to retrieve

or multiply what my father lost
or gained.

I continually find myself in the ruins

of new beginnings,
uncoiling the rope of my life
to descend ever deeper into unknown abysses,
tying my heart into a knot
round a tree or boulder,

to insure I have something that will hold me,

that will not let me fall.

My heart has many thorn-studded slits of flame

springing from the red candle jars.
My dreams flicker and twist
on the altar of this earth,
light wrestling with darkness,
light radiating into darkness,
to widen my day blue,
and all that is wax melts
in the flame-

I can see treetops!

What is Broken is What God Blesses

The lover's footprint in the sand
the ten-year-old kid's bare feet
in the mud picking chili for rich growers,
not those seeking cultural or ethnic roots,
but those whose roots
have been exposed, hacked, dug up and burned
and in those roots
do animals burrow for warmth;

what is broken is blessed,

not the knowledge and empty-shelled wisdom
paraphrased from textbooks,
not the mimicking nor plaques of distinction
nor the ribbons and medals
but after the privileged carriage has passed
the breeze blows traces of wheel ruts away
and on the dust will again be the people's broken
footprints.
What is broken God blesses,
not the perfectly brick-on-brick prison
but the shattered wall
that announces freedom to the world,
proclaims the irascible spirit of the human
rebelling against lies, against betrayal,
against taking what is not deserved;
the human complaint is what God blesses,
our impoverished dirt roads filled with cripples,
what is broken is baptized,
the irreverent disbeliever,
the addict's arm seamed with needle marks
is a thread line of a blanket
frayed and bare from keeping the man warm.

We are all broken ornaments,

glinting in our worn-out work gloves,
foreclosed homes, ruined marriages,
from which shimmer our lives in their deepest truths,
blood from the wound,
broken ornaments
when we lost our perfection and honored our imperfect sentiments, we were
blessed.
Broken are the ghettos, barrios, trailer parks where gangs duel to death,
yet through the wretchedness a woman of sixty comes riding her rusty bicycle,
we embrace
we bury in our hearts,
broken ornaments, accused, hunted, finding solace and refuge
we work, we worry, we love
but always with compassion
reflecting our blessings
in our brokenness
thrives life, thrives light, thrives
the essence of our strength,
each of us a warm fragment,
broken off from the greater
ornament of the unseen,
then rejoined as dust,

to all this is.

Works Cited
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. "A Daily Joy To Be Alive Poem." Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 01
Mar. 2016.
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. "Choices Poem." Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. "Oppression Poem." Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. "What Is Broken Is What God Blesses Poem."Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d.
Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
"Jimmy Santiago Baca." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.