PEACE IS NOT For the children of our world.
PEACE IS NOT For the children of our world.
written by Shelia K. Diaz, Wilmington, CA. Migrant Publications, Los Angeles, CA
Peace is Not
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PEACE IS NOT © 2010 Shelia K. Diaz, Wilmington, CA All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author. .
Peace is Not
Table of Contents Page(s)
Table of Contents Chapter One – The United States Peace is Not
Page 5
We Tell Them
Page 6
Mijito
Page 8
Teacher
Page 9
Welcome to Language Arts
Page 10
When Will America Be America Again
Page 11
Dieciocho
Page 12
Who Can Stop A Sunset Farmworkers
Page 14
Her Father’s Other Daughter
Page 15
Chapter 2 – Colombia La Casa en el Aire
Page 16
Los Desechables – In the Street
Page 17
Los Desechables – In the Plaza
Page 18
Book Title
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List of Illustrations Page(s)
List of Illustrations
Peace is Not
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This book began as a need to say goodbye to my youngest son, Jason, who was murdered as a result of the gang warfare in South Los Angeles. I wrote this for him and for all of the children who suffer because of violence.
I would also like to thank Helen Dunn, and Deirdre Lashgari who were my mentors early on in my writing career and who continue to be my muses as strong independent women who value good writing.
Special thanks go to my husband Carlos Mauricio, for his patience and support, and to my friend Elizabeth Scher who always has time to read my new work and give honest feedback. Thank you to UCLA’s Writer’s Anonymous for their support in the process of writing and publishing this book. The Writing Project and the Reading and Literature Project at UCLA have also been an invaluable support for my writing.
Peace is Not
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Peace Is Not
Peace is not Lives measured together Like words in a poem And placed Bloodless On a page. It is not Calle Quince at night In Bucaramanga, Colombia Or children Whose mothers Cannot tuck them in. It is not an empty bed Or an open door Waiting for loved loves Who will never Come home. It is not 69th and Main St. In Los Angeles On Saturday night Or anywhere Where children Are familiar with The machine Gun sound of Bullets in flesh.
Peace is Not
It is not Children killing each other Or a cross burning In Georgia, Or a bomb exploding Children like flowers In a park in Medellin Or Afghanistan, Or New York. Peace is not As lifeless As the mothers of Iraq When their children Are gone. Or the governments Of the world Playing chess With the fingers Of our dead As easily as they eat Their morning toast. It is not, God, Peace Is not.
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Chapter 1 – The U. S. We Tell Them We tell them their Standardized test scores Are important But we don’t Know the scores They keep quietly To themselves As they pretend to read Or write About places They’ve never been And things they’ve Never imagined. We don’t know Who died yesterday Last week, Or last year, Or whose mother Or father is Missing, yet, We ask them to Raise their hands If they know the answers To our questions. How many answers Do we have For the questions They need answered?
Peace is Not
We tell them They can be anything They want to be If they work hard, But they don’t \ Tell us That they were up Until midnight Making tamales To sell In order to Help their families, Or that they worked All weekend Or all week After school. They don’t tell us The real reasons That they didn’t do Their homework Or that last week Their uncle was murdered Bringing milk home From the corner tienda, That their mother Was deported ten years Ago and they live With an auntie
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Who has seven children of her own to feed. We pretend we Known the answers To the important Questions, so We give them tests About things they Have never learned, And when they score Lower than all Of the other children, We tell them They must do better, even When we Don’t even know how To pronounce Their names And we have never driven down the street Where they live And sometimes die. Even though we Teach them what Is important to us We don’t take the time To learn What is important To them.
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Mijito
Jorge: All he ever wanted Was written Into the lines of his first Four line poemA room of his own Breakfast in the morning A yard with a white picket fence and a dog in it – All he has is a torn page At the back of my desk drawer Next to Maria, Jose, Eddie, Alberto Alma, Mauricio, Jason, and me. He is scrawled in between The two lines Of a South Central crosswalk Next to where he first learned To write his name In my eighth grade classroom. And his letters are like the bullets At 54th and Broadway So terrifying and so sad.
Peace is Not
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Teacher I am a teacher Of children buried Deep in the heart Of a nation In a mass grave Of racism And indifference. I am a teacher Of lost hopes; Of treasures Hidden up In the brown dirt Of our South Central Plantations I am a teacher Whose children weep At the sound Of Langston Hughes’ “Dreams,” And the sound Of an ice cream truck That passes by Slowly selling lies.
I am a teacher Torn between Boundaries Of supposed Freeways That take me home Out of the darkness But put my children To bed and sleep So deep In this nation That doesn’t see.
Welcome to Language Arts L.A. style Where the first lesson Is boundaries Borders, barrios, And the vocabulary Is Florencia trece, Dieciocho, 69 East Coast, Cuz And Moonlight Cats. Poetry Is a night without bullets Or sirens, or dead students. Here, the only grammar That counts Is the present Tense. Joy is found In a moment of peace, And the enemy Is lulled to sleep By Shakespeare, And Blake, and Donne Before the bell Breaks the day Into all its differences.
When Will America Be America Again? This is America, The U.S. of A People who are not Part of the dream. The U.S. of A Place where it is not news That the sun rises Over three hundred New graves Each day, All children, Unknown, Unnamed, And unreported. It is one nation Under a God Who sees there Is a liberty And a justice That is not For all. This no longer Sweet land Of liberty I ask myself “to thee Who sings?”
Land where our Children die Land of our dying Pride From every Mountainside, It’s time We change.
Dieciocho
It is written into his obituary.
It means he belonged,
Disgraced
Feared.
It is slashed into The minds of his enemies And divides his family and his heart Marks his boundaries. It is who he isIt is who he was. It means he belongs. He is someone. Observed. Scrutinized. Sometimes afraid.
It is ripped into his flesh Bullet by bullet And marks the place Where he was Who he was In blood Spilled Disgraced And still Loved.
Who Can Stop a Sunset? For Jason, March 13, 2004, 7:15 pm, Harbor UCLA Hospital
A bullet pierces The heart of day and Bright red pumps out In slow motion Across the deep cobalt Edges of the hours Before it makes long streaks In the darkness.
I sit here watching As the ocean Becomes another dark memory And my beloved son Is buried Somewhere In the west.
Farmworkers
There are no clouds in Arizona To hide the loneliness. Heat reflects everything, Even the freckles on a child’s face Become yellow sagebrush Beneath the glass desert sky. Cement canals dissect the melting sand As they rise up to the Indian mesas Coiling around the distant cities and Wait for the children To return from twelve hours of labor In the cotton fields Sink their cracked feet and burned skin Into the muddy water Lower their heads under the coolness To wash away the day’s work from their eyes Until they resemble cool pink clouds
And they blossom up out of the water Making the desert bloom Before they run back to their square cement houses Leaving thin wet lines Over the taut face Of the mesa vieja.
Her Father’s Other Daughter
From the distant river She is lifted up To her father’s Waiting lap. Her arms are crushed Against his Sweat-stained chest.
A fog arises like A giant grey moth Against the yellow Her Old ceramic bowl Lamont Sky And in the front yard There are sometimes roses Among the poverty stricken limbs but there are always blackberries and Mom’s jams In the kitchen While in the other room The other sister sleeps And dreams But her fingers busy And at ease Mother sings “Amazing Grace,” At the table culling peas again.
Her old ceramic bowl
Covers her careful lap As she husks words/hours Watches and waits Until bedtime When she washes/dries her wrinkled hands
and like the other daughter sleeps. And she under her cold quilt Is left to dream Of his darkened skin
Covers her careful lap His uneven hands His uneven hands
A distant river Covering her Instead of him.
Chapter 2 – Colombia “La Casa en el Aire”*
Memories curve over the distant mountains into the gentle smoke of Bougainvillea bursting into fuchsia clouds outside my window. The sun filters a soft mango light through this morning’s darkness, illuminates the palm leaves as they touch the earth. The fluted melody of wind becomes a mother’s voice, flowing gently over the Cordillera Oriental as the Papaya branches become her arms resting against the horizon. Street vendors’ cries of, “Limones, Mangos,” Memories echo the rain as the day becomes a soft Vallenato.
* A Vallenato (typical music of the Colombian Caribbean coast)
Los Desechables –In the Street Los desechables, As young as six, Sleep on the streets Because, a mother, Knowing her family Will go hungry, Sacrifices one child, Sends them out In the hope That even a few pesos Will make the difference At that night’s supper table. In Cinco Huecos, In La Ratonera, and Calle el Cartucho,1 The children become Small hungry thieves Straight from the pages Of Charles Dickens As they forage in the garbage Along with the city’s stray dogs And live on the ledges Of the city’s sewers Orphaned by the violence Of life’s roughest streets
With bars, brothels, And drugs for company They become sad
Inevitabilities Huddled together In a short story That chills My blood.
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Neighborhoods in Bogota, Colombia known for violence and poverty.
-In the Plaza We sit comfortably At a clean table In the Café de la Luna Order hamburgers & fries, Sip our sodas, And talk About the color Of today’s sky, Laughing. I try to take in Life outside the windows, Watching a cart Piled high with avocados A woman Carrying mangos In a tin pan on top Of her head, And her child in her Right arm. I listen to a trio singing “O Que Sera, Sera, somewhere In the distance Of a day Bright and pulsing With music Then a tiny hand Reaches in front of me, And I turn to see A small dirty face, Blue eyes staring, and Five year old skin Smudged with mud. Her torn dress Causes me to reach
Into my pockets For money. But, she is eyeing My French fries So I give them to her Instead of the customary centavos. She quickly stuffs A French fry Into her mouth Then takes the rest Eating as she leaves. I watch her go Out the door Running To the other side Of the plaza. As I return to -In the Plaza continued
My soda, And my friend There is a slap loud enough To be heard Everywhere in the room. We all look to see French fries scattered On the ground Next to the little girl And a fat woman Standing over her. I rise from my seat Ready to defend her But my friend pulls me down Says that it is best For the little girl, For everyone, if I don’t Get involved. Says the woman will Only beat her more.
I listen and watch As the girl is dragged By her arm From the square. The French fries are Being eaten by stray dogs But no one else Pays attention. We call for the check, Walk out into the plaza And leave to the sound Of a foreign song Playing in the distance. “O que sera sera.”