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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


BROKEN RHYTHMS; IN A MEXICAN LABOR CAMP by AMANDA MATHEWS CHASE

First Line: LA GOLONDRINA
Last Line: NEW MUSIC?
Subject(s): CHICANOS; MIGRANT LABOR; MUSIC & MUSICIANS; MEXICAN AMERICANS; MIGRATORY WORKERS; AGRICULTURAL LABORERS;

"La Golondrina"
Thrummed
To a lame-stringed guitar.

Soft-eyed women
With plaited braids
At soggy tubs.
No gurgling dips
In flowing streams
To naiad laughter.

Metreless brown hands
Shaping limp @3tortillas@1
From grocery flour.
Lost the old tuned
Spat! Spat!
Of pestled corn.

Fierce gas flames
Scorching @3frijoles.@1
No long soft glows
Of charcoal, fanned
To long slow thoughts.

Behold that once-schoolmaster,
Slight-built and scholarly,
Nodding, workworn,
Over Spanish poems.

Note that carver of images
Whose dream-troubled eyes
Study with rue
His stiff track-mending hands.

Broken rhythms
All their craft and art.
Tune-lost their lives
In exile....
@3America,
Can you give them
New Music?@1



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