Jimmy Santiago Baca: "I Am Offering This Poem"

I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat
when winter comes to cover you,
or like a pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,

                         I love you,

I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in winter,
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,

                         I love you,

Keep it, treasure this as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature;
and in the corner of your drawer,
tucked away like a cabin or hogan
in dense trees, come knocking,
and I will answer, give you directions,
and let you warm yourself by this fire,
rest by this fire, and make you feel safe

                         I love you,

It’s all I have to give,
and all anyone needs to live,
and to go on living inside,
when the world outside
no longer cares if you live or die;
remember,

                         I love you.



"I Am Offering This Poem" by Jimmy Santiago Baca, from Immigrants in Our Own Land & Selected Early Poems. © New Directions Publishing, 1990.

Photography credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer, found at this link (originally color).


 

Jimmy Santiago Baca: "This Day"

I feel foolish, 
    like those silly robins jumping on the ditch boughs 
    when I run by them.  
                   Those robins do not have the grand style of the red tailed hawk,   
                    no design, no dream, just robins acting stupid.
They've never smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, consumed drugs
as I have.
                    In their mindless
                    fluttering about
                    filled with nonsense, 
                         they tell me how they
                                 love the Great Spirit,            
                     scold me not to be self-pitying,
                     to open my life
                     and make this day a bough on a tree
                     leaning over infinity, where eternity flows forward
                     and with day the river runs                       
                                  carrying all that falls in it.            
                     Be happy Jimmy, they chirp,            
                     Jimmy, be silly, make this day a tree
                     leaning over the river eternity
                     and fuss about in its branches.

"This Day" by Jimmy Santiago Baca, from Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande. © New Directions, 2007.

Image credit: Unknown (originally color).