From Folk Art on the second floor,
The paintings are patches below, more wall than
frame,
More frame (from here) than meaning.
If the floor had a loose board,
If the board could squeak as
viewers strolled,
The sound would make La Muerte grin,
Supervisor of Folk Art, bones on
red fabric
Frameless, waiting for breeze.
Dr. Arturo Ortiz from the local
University
Will translate tonight, but
forgets his role,
Repeats Spanish slowly, as if for
children:
Estudio número
uno, de Heitor Villa-lobos,
que es muy
importante para la guitarra.
Javier Cantú Barrera
Wishes Dr. Ortiz would please sit
down,
Stop fussing over music
That needs no Spanish or English,
Stringing lights in the square
Of Coahuila, remembering lanterns
at dusk
That glowed between trees,
Patterns that moved with the
branches
Where he walked with his wife
When their marriage was young.
The boy in front sees trees
Grow from Barrera's thumbs,
Soft light glinting like feathers
where
The flutter reminds him it’s
almost spring,
The hummingbirds need their
feeders filled.
He thinks of the sparrow that
nests
In the rafters, listening and
awake.
The boy dreams he's Barrera,
writing songs.
He imagines a black beetle scuttling
bright and alone
As paintings spill over their
frames.
The walls are every color now, and
the beetle is dancing
La danza del escarabajo, his most famous song.
Javier Cantú Barrera doesn’t know
the paintings
Behind have splashed the walls
Or that a beetle dances at his
feet.
He sees a tired man leaning off
to the side,
Gaunt skin over old bones, eyes
deep in their sockets
Like the Don Quixote riding Rocinante done in bronze.
Cántico a la
Vida, very soft,
Says the evening is late, and
sleep will be sweet.
He thanks the good people and Dr.
Ortiz,
Lifts his guitar to La Muerte,
Who after the chairs are cleared
And the last door swings,
His red cloth, frameless,
Shifts in the breeze.
3/2013
Hickory
Museum of Art
Hickory,
North Carolina
