The grand parade of humanklnd
marched along the hot concrete highway.
The cloud of insects drew near,
striking against a barrier of insecticide.
The fallen dead was blown through the crowd,
bodies great and small, on hot air currents, and
putrid stench waved arms above the pavement.
Behind, the concrete stretched,
shredded like cheese by expert hands, and
dark wounds in the earth festered
for several thousand years or until
the radiation dies out.
Ahead, unforeseen and unimagined horrors
cried out in warnings, in pleas.
The cattle of humankind passed on,
prodded by electric rods, along a
guided pathway to the
sweaty slaughterhouse of fate.
Bigotry, injustice, persecution, and hate
slithered amidst the cattle,
hunting and breeding.
I walked too
along that concrete highway,
near the edge where concrete and
world gave way to wilderness.
I too walked on and on, forever,
pulled by the currents of a living
river dropping ahead into the
gaping maw of time.
In eternity
I spied out a forlorn figure,
walking in the wilderness beside
the concrete highway on
a dark and lonely road.
I called out and the figure turned:
Face so gaunt and gallant,
shame of eagle’s glory flight.
Eyes, with dams no salty tears
could fill, blazed with intense
luminosity. Eyes that looked into
the soul, the truth, into me.
Have never looked… have never
seen… have never felt… have
never been. Truth drew my estranged
soul, undenied beacon of light.
Hands gripped walking stick,
his scepter, well worn, well wielded
weapons literary. Fortune
lines divulged and diverged
ageless. Figure tall, unbent
by time’s pressure, time’s bane.
He traveled weU upon
that dark and lonely road.
Ravished words howled forth from
twisted caves, wondrous and unsteered.
“My truth is not a whim to
eternity; it struggles on and on.
My truth is written as words on
pages and sunken marks on the hearts
of my Raza: Chicanos, Asians,
Caucasians, others – the human Raza”.
Words that gleamed as truth
unsoiled. No Iies… no
covers… drew I near.
“Each generation holds forth
its own lantern to steer by,
whether or not on calm dawns or storms.
Who will follow in the steps of
the light, the lantern, the truth?”
My feet stepped upon the soiled earth of
that dark and lonely road.
Spirit elated soared on
newborn wings of first flight.
Voice contorts, shapes “I will”.
Hope whispers “Others will follow”.
Ruben Salazar and I embraced–
A light at the horizon,
fiery flame of life eternal, truth eternal,
drew us on and on, now, and gone…
That dark and lonely road
that I have never traveled ’til
now, was not so
dark and lonely
after all.
Submitted to 1990 UTLA Ruben Salazar Scholarship