Movement (edit 2)

[nb]

Hi bbcashdollar!

This my first post. Here goes...

the arroyos in front
and back of my house
aren't filled
by a flood of history

there is no desire
to break their banks
carve a new path
create a new order

I am intrigued. Do you regret that the arroyos around your house "aren't filled by a flood of history..." or do you welcome it (and perhaps envy them a bit)? Your tone is ambiguous and I am curious to see how the rest of your poem answers this question (or not). Floods can be enormously destructive or (like the annual Nile floods before they built the Aswan High Dam) life-giving.

streams and rivers change
when overwhelmed
by volume and force

Correct but have the arroyos around your house been so overwhelmed?

The rains have come
reminding me
my view of revolution
has changed

What does revolution have to do with it? You pique my curiosity further.

the children tease:
men don’t sweep,
nor scrub dishes,
nor wash clothes
by hand in the river

I smile back
in my world they do,
or at least they can

victories are first won
snapping soapy cloth
between fists,
rinsing plates,
and coaxing dirt

A revolution in family mores?

I spend my mornings
sweeping out the wings
of flying, mating, dying insects
sweeping them out by the thousands
frustrated as they resist

caught up in currents of air
floating up and settling down
nearly where they began

Great image. "Flying, mating, dying" -- is this all there is to life?

"settling down
nearly where they began" reminds me of the salmon that return upstream to the place where they were spawned in order to spawn and die. The second stanza (in the above excerpt) reinforces the first; perhaps "Flying, mating, dying" is what there is to life.

wings - alas the children tell me
reminding me of the word for soul

floating up and settling down
nearly where they began.

We don't listen to our children nearly as much as we should.

Years later
same rough hewn planks
same translucent wings

but instead of history's
inevitable march,
alas, o almas perdidas,
I see the tumult of air

rather than the flutter of matter
I see conflict of gravity, inertia
the trajectory of energy
a sweeper moved by
the same thinly-veiled forces
insubstantial as the
membrane of rising
and falling wings

these termites pass instinct
through generations of young
moment to moment
life to life

each sweep
each flight and fall
backwards and forward
learning and relearning.
finally, wings flutter into sunlight
out the door, settling into mud

it seems so little has changed.

Again, do you regret that so little has changed or does it comfort you?

I recognize their faces
in their sons & daughters,
but men with brooms & soap
are no longer foreign.

wives and girls working
zonas francas,
maids in towns,
o afuera
making-do is not the same
as overcoming

roaring torrents
a mass of humanity beyond breaking,
a single life beyond control,
or a violent rush of beginningless karma
I catch what's left
of myself

I'm not at all clear why you should have to "catch what's left of" yourself? Where did the rest of you go?

it's still about liberation, but
instead of the sweep of revolution
I see the movement of action and intention

I mind the breath and whisper
be determined, be patient, and finally be free.

Aha! Methinks you have finally really realized that changelessness, i.e. (to cite the beginning of your poem), that not breaking new banks or carving a new path or creating a new order can be just as liberating as (a) revolution. Freedom often comes to the one who is patient.

nb