Bribe

I hear Indian women
chanting, chanting
I see them long ago bribing
the desert with turquoise threads,
in the silent morning coolness,
kneeling, digging, burying
their offering in the Land
chanting, chanting
Guide my hands, Mother,
to weave singing birds
flowers rocking in the wind, to trap
them on my cloth with a web of tiny threads

Secretly, I scratch a hole in the desert
by my home. I bury a ballpoint pen
and lined yellowing paper. Like the Indians
I ask the land to smile on me, to croon
softly, to help me catch her music with words

Pat Mora

In a 2003 interview with Nancy Sullivan, Pat Mora talks about the Chicana poet as a a modern-day curandera: curandera /cu
“The Chicana writer seeks to heal cultural wounds of historical neglect by providing opportunities to remember the past, to share and ease bitterness, to describe what has been viewed as unworthy
of description, to cure by incantations and rhythms, by listening with her entire being and responding.
She then gathers the tales and myths, weaves them together, and, if lucky, casts spells.”