A Lovely View
To find my father’s grave I align myself with the mountain that looms in the distance and walk the short path that leads to his remains.
It saddens me to think that I am but one of his few visitors but then when I remember the day that he was buried, I think as I did then: What a lovely view!
Amuse-Bouche
When you read a poem savor each word as you would a spoonful of a luscious dessert.
Caress each bite-sized syllable gently on your tongue as if it were the name of your best love.
When you read a poem pretend each delicate morsel fills your mouth with magic and miracles.
Read it slowly; say it softly like a family secret finally finding its freedom.
When you read a poem read it as if each breath you take were your last.
Chips with Ketchup
In 1965, potatoes were thinly sliced, deep fried and served in cone shaped dixie cups with ketchup.
After school let out from St. Cecilia’s Catholic School in Manhattan, a parade of crimson and white uniforms marched to the 5 and dime store on the corner of 106th and 3rd.
We’d scatter like nuns in the casino scene of Sister Act and converge at the lunch counter for freshly fried chips with ketchup.
This was our special treat at a time when lunch counters elsewhere were scenes of unrest, violence and hatred in southern parts of the country we didn’t know existed.
Civil rights weren’t an issue for 12- year-old Hispanic, Black, Italian and Irish school girls, who shared religion, education and cones of chips with ketchup on the Upper East Side of New York City in 1965.
At that time in our young girls’ lives nothing else seemed more important than chips with ketchup.
Times are much different for 12-year-old girls nowadays.
El Cuartito/The Little Room
El cuartito is the family room, TV room and hospital room all squeezed into a 12×16 square foot space.
A lot has happened here: conversations, meals and laughter; lots of heartache too.
This is where our family pictures and smiles are safely stored.
This is where my daughter and I bathed and changed Titi Carmen after her brain surgery at 102; before she went to the nursing home where she died in her sleep a month before her 106th birthday.
This is where my EarthAngel/brother watched reruns of El Chavo del 8 before he was confined to a hospital bed and cried like a Banshee in pain.
This is where I held his hand during such torment as he writhed and cursed and spit; before bedsores, debridement and hospice.
This is where I swept and mopped away so many tears and sorrow that seeped in through the foundation that cracked when the mango trees fell during the hurricanes.
This is where I make way for better days believing something good will come after so much destruction and that all things work out for the best in the long run.
Senzala
I want my ancestors to recognize me in the afterlife.
I will be wearing the symbols they etched on the side of mountains engraved on my skin:
An indigenous mermaid on my right shoulder for the ocean that surrounds the land they inhabited before Colon (you know him as Columbus) and the waters black mermaids embraced to escape the slave ships that brought them from Brazil preferring death to enslavement;
A Vejigante, an African mask, designed with water and hurricane signs to ward off the anger of Oya and Huracan, the Orisha and god of the winds;
A machete that cleared their land for sugar cane, prosperity and colonization;
A garita, the soldiers’ sentry box surrounding the forts built by Conquistadores to protect Borinquen from other invasions.
The Taino sun, moon goddess, a snake, butterfly and coqui:
These are their gifts to me, the story my body proudly tells and will wear to my grave.
The sacrifices they made for me and the strength I inherited from them have helped me survive so many years later.
I want my ancestors to recognize me in the afterlife and surely hope my life honors theirs.
Senzala (Spanish version)
Quiero que mis antecedentes me reconozcan en el más allá.
Llevare grabada en mi piel los dibujos que tallaron en la superficie de cuevas y montañas.
En mi hombro derecho llevo una sirena indígena nadando en el mar que rodea la tierra que habitaban y las aguas que las sirenas negras abrazaron para escapar la esclavitud de las naves que las traían de Brasil;
Un Vejigante, una máscara africana diseñado con grabados de agua y ciclón para calmar la ira de Oya y Huracán la Orisha y el dios de los vientos;
Un machete, que desyerbó la tierra para la caña, prosperidad y colonización;
Una garita que rodea el Morro construida por los Conquistadores para proteger a Borinquen de otras invasiones;
El sol Taino, la diosa de la luna, una culebra, mariposa y coquí:
Estos son los regalos que recibí, el cuento que mi cuerpo llevará con orgullo a la tumba.
No puedo ignorar los sacrificios que hicieron por mí, ni la fuerza que herede para luchar en esta vida.
Quiero que mis antecedentes me reconozcan en el más allá y solo ruego que mi vida a ellos también los honre.
Maritza Rivera is a Puerto Rican poet and Army veteran who has lived in Rockville, MD since 1994. She has been writing poetry for over fifty years; is the creator of a short form of poetry called Blackjack and is the publisher of Casa Mariposa Press. Maritza is the author of About You; A Mother’s War, written during her son’s two tours in Iraq; Baker’s Dozen; Twenty-One: Blackjack Poems and the Blackjack Poetry Playing Cards.
Her work appears in literary magazines, anthologies and online publications and in the public arts project, Meet Me at the Triangle in Wheaton, MD. In 2011, Maritza began hosting the annual Mariposa Poetry Retreat, “where the magic of poetry happens”, which takes place in Puerto Rico in 2022.