Unpeopled Eden

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
"Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportees)," Woody Guthrie

after the immigration raid

Beneath one apple tree the fruit

lies flung like the beads from

a rosary with a broken string.

Another tree stands amused

over the strangeness of a shoe

that pretends to be an apple

in its redness, though it'll never be

an apple with that lace stem

and a pit where a core should be.

The tree at the end of the row

will weep over the pillage

all week. Around its trunk, debris:

straw hats, handkerchief, a basket

going hungry for what's out

of reach. Somewhere in the orchard

a screech goes weaker by the hour.

A radio without paws, it cannot claw

its chords to end its suffering.

But silence comes, eventually,

and the apple trees will rest,

gathering the shadows to their roots

as the flame inside each apple

falls asleep. All the while, finches

perch among the branches—patient

vultures waiting for the fruit to rot.

For a wasp, intoxicated by the sugars,

this is the perfect place to nest.

The colony will thrive inside

decay: the apples softening until

their wrinkled skins begin to sink,

the seeds poking through like teeth.

The trees will sway without the wind

because the ground will boil

with larvae. A bird will feast

until it chokes and ants will march

into the belly through the beak.

after the ride by bus

A strand of hair pretends to be

a crack and sticks to glass. A piece

of thread sits on a seat, pretends

to be a tear. The bus makes believe

no one cried into their hands and smeared

that grief onto its walls. The walls

will keep the fingerprints a secret

until the sheen of oils glows by moon.

Rows of ghosts come forth to sing.

Until that keening rocks the bus

to rest, the fumes intoxicate

the solitary button—single witness

to the shuffling of feet and a final act

of fury: the yanking of a wetback's

shirt. The button popped right off

the flannel, marched in the procession

and then scurried to the side. The lesson:

if wounded, stay behind to die.

The bus breathes out the shapes

turned silhouettes turned scent

of salt and sweat. The steering wheel

unspools, every window shaking loose

the wetness of its glare. And now

a riddle squats over the parking lot:

What creature stands its ground

after evisceration? Roadkill. Clouds

close in to consume the afterbirth.

III

after the detention in the county jail

A mausoleum also keeps these gems:

precipitation that hardens into diamonds

on the cobweb stems, streams of urine

that shimmer like streaks of gold.

Lights coax out the coat of polish

on the floor and what's solid softens

into water stripped of ripples. Stilled

and empty, a river that has shoved

its pebbles down its throat.

The cell holds out three drops of blood

and will barter them for company,

hungry for the smell of men again. Janitor,

border guard or detainee, it's all the same

musk of armpit, garlic breath, oils

that bubble up from crack to tailbone,

scent of semen from the foreskin,

fungus from the toes. Without takers,

the keyhole constricts in the cold.

after the deportation plane falls from the sky

A red-tailed hawk breaks through

the smoke and doesn't drop the way

the bodies did when the plane

began to dive and spat pieces of its

cargo out the door. No grace, the twitching

of such a great machine. No beauty to

its blackening inside the pristine

canvas of majestic blue—a streak of rage

made by a torch and not a paintbrush.

The hawk lands on the canyon

and snaps its neck in quick response

to the vulgar cracking on the boulders,

to the shrill of metal puncturing

the canyon, to the burst of flames

that traps a nest of mice within the lair

turned furnace, burning shriek, and hair.

Stunned host of sparrows scatters.

Fume of feathers, pollution in the air.

Poison in the lungs of all that breathes.

A darkness rises. The blue absorbs it

the way it dissipates a swarm after

the crisis of a shattered hive. Heaven

shows its mercy also, swallowing

the groan that spilled out of the hill.

No signs of tragedy by dusk

except a star splayed over rock,

the reek of fumes—a disemboweled god.

after the clean-up along Los Gatos Canyon

What strange flowers grow

in the shadow. Without petals

and with crooked twigs for stems.

The butterflies that pollinated them

were bits of carbon glowing

at the edge. The solitary lone wolf

spider doesn't dare to bite

the scorched caul on the canyon.

It packs its fangs for brighter lands.

The footprints drawn in black

do not match the footprints

in the orchard though they also

bear the weight of the unwanted.

The chain gang called upon to gather

the debris sang the Prison Blues

all afternoon: Inmate, deportee,

in your last attempt to flee

every bone splits into three.

after the communal burial

Twenty-eight equals one

deportation bus equals one

cell in the detention center, one

plane-load of deportees, one

plunge into the canyon, one

body in the coffin although one

was a woman—sister not alone

anymore among the chaperone

of angels with wings of stone.

Manuel Merino, Julio Barrón,

Severo, Elías, Manuel Calderón,

Francisco, Santiago, Jaime, Martín,

Lupe, Guadalupe, Tomás, Juan Ruiz,

Alberto, Ramón, Apolonio, Ramón,

Luis, Román, Luis, Salvador,

Ignacio Navarro, Jesús, Bernabé,

Rosalío Portillo, María, y José.

Y un Deportado No Identificado.

No papers necessary to cross

the cemetery. The sun floods

the paths between tombs

and everything pushes out

into light. No shame to be

a cherub without a nose.

The wreath will not hide

its decay. Cement displays

its injuries with no regrets.

This is the place to forget

about labor and hardship and pain.

No house left to build, no kitchen

to clean, no chair on a porch, no

children to feed. No longing left

except a wish that will never come

true: Paint us back into the blank

sky's blue. Don't forget us

like we've forgotten all of you.

Notes:

"Unpeopled Eden”: Chris Mahin, commenting on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportees)" by Woody Guthrie, wrote the following account:

The fire began over Los Gatos Canyon. It started in the left engine-driven fuel pump. The plane crashed 20 miles west of Coalinga, California, on January 29, 1948.

There were 32 people on board that day, but the names of only four are recorded for history. The newspaper articles about the crash describe an accident involving a Douglas DC-3 carrying immigrant workers from Oakland, California to the El Centro, California Deportation Center. Those accounts give the name of the plane's pilot (Frank Atkinson), and co-pilot (Marion Ewing). They mention the name of the stewardess (Bobbie Atkinson) and the guard (Frank E. Chapin). However, the newspaper stories do not include the names of any of the 27 men or of the one woman who were passengers on that flight, victims who were buried in a mass grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, California. The newspaper reports simply dismiss them as "deportees."

The twenty-eight deportees to whom this poem is dedicated (que en paz descansen):

Julio Barrón, Manuel Calderón, Francisco Durán, Santiago Elisandro, Rosalío Estrada, Bernabé García, Jaime A. Guardajo, Severo Lara, Elías Macías, José Macías, Tomás Márquez, Luis Medina, Manuel Merino, Luis Mirando, Ignacio Navarro, Martín Navarro, Román Ochoa, Ramón Perez, Apolonio Placencia, Ramón Portillo, Guadalupe Ramírez, Alberto Raygoza, Guadalupe Rodríguez, María Rodríguez, Juan Ruiz, Salvador Sandoval, and Jesús Santos. And to the Unidentified One.

Source: Unpeopled Eden (Four Way Books, 2013)