QUETZALCOATL

A selection from The Sun Loves Every Planet

Over the border they come

Year after year

Wave after wave

A sea of brown faces

Looking for a better life

Than the ones they left behind

I ask myself

Why do they need to come here to work?

What is wrong with their country?

Why can’t they make enough money there?

I don’t know

But

Something forces millions

To seek a chance

In another country

Familiar to them

And yet

Still foreign

They tell me

The border is a dangerous place

Desperate women

Will do anything

To get across

There are men who know this

They take advantage of it

They prey on the hopes of those

With nothing to lose

Those that come to America

To work the jobs that Americans

Won’t or don’t want to work

The wages are low

The work is hard

But they can’t say no

America is changing

The culture is changing

The language is changing

Someday

I don’t know exactly when it will be

There will be more people

That speak Spanish

Rather than English

In America

I suppose

In a larger perspective on time

It all makes sense in some kind of way

Centuries ago

Quetzalcoatl

And the people of the sun

Were invaded and conquered

By the Spaniards 

Now

The descendants of lost cities

Overtaken by jungles

Descendants of people

Who built pyramids

Gleaming in the sun

Are migrating north

Sometimes I tell people

The future is

Portable

Wireless

And Mexican

Before long

There will be more hot sauce available

On every street corner

Than you ever thought possible

They either laugh at me

Or say something to the effect of

Not in my lifetime

I still think English

Will remain the national languageI laugh back

Their responses make me wonder

If they’re deaf or blind