El Corrido Del Nino

John Chavez

As a boy
I heard the sounds of Mexicano music
dancing on soft summer breezes
filling the air of my avacado-green house,
a snare drum keeping constant tempo
maracas shaking like dried rattlesnake tails
Mariachis plucking stacatto guitars
singing their cantos,

corridos

as my brother and I would help mom
dust and clean

Growing up in Non-Spanish speaking barrios,
the beating of drums,

shaking of maracas,

plucking of stacatto guitars grew
quiet…

dust and cobwebs gathered

in crowded corners of my mind,
making me forget that a boy
who once dance on his mother's feet

Occasionally I heard
the AM dial of time

fading in & out -

not knowing whether the beating I'd heard
was the tapping of my mother's feet
or the thorns of lost memories

constricting my heart

of it's own natural tempo

I searched for myself
somewhere in the music,

between the melodies

that created chaotic rivers in my veins
sculpting shores by its flowing,

emanate pulse,

realizing I haven't heard the music
crash on its banks for years,
now cracked and dried
a desolate river bed
where water has ceased to flow