Querida
Lirios en Tierra Fértil (oil on canvas) began with spider lilies I encountered on a walk with my mother in Mexico. Upon closer observation, I saw motherhood: open blooms and spent ones sharing space, dried red pistils falling like old wounds, darkness pressing in at the edge. The underpainting is of La Virgen de Guadalupe. The wall in the background became gold surrounding the flowers like reverence, because flowers that tall only grow in fertile ground.
Obdulia was born upstream,
in barely a town
where little innovation reached
the dust and the dirt.
She sang and danced and
I suppose we had wooden doors in common.
Portals and failures, threshold and home.
Winding rivers led her to my world.
I look to her from the ground,
unable to see detail past the yellow halo
gracing the crown of her head.
She looks impossibly far away on horseback.
Mother as ancient roots.
We are the branches gasping for air.
She, keeper of our memories,
stores the stars in porcelain jewelry boxes
because the winding rivers led her in such a way.
She wears long skirts that flow
like the icy rivers she never forgets.
I am the left most branch,
furthest from the river,
frail and green,
and I too sing and dance so I never forget.
