Second Coming No. 23 — Feb. 11, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Sarah Van Arsdale
January 20, 2025, Noon
I had expected the ground would quiver
then tremble and quake,
the cobblestones in my street splitting,
revealing hell beneath my feet.
It was the hour the world would change.
But I walked to the mercado
and passed the big brown dog,
sleeping fatly as always in the shade.
Carajillo, he’s called
by the shopkeepers who keep him fed.
I passed the notices for the lucha libre
pasted to lamp posts, garish, tempting.
I passed the new café,
and then the old one, the whole street perfumed
with the scent of tortillas and bleach.
I had expected the wall that runs along the garden—
built of enormous green stones
that in the rain are shot through
with juniper and sage, moss and parakeet—
to crack, collapse, concede.
I had expected the Virgin of Soledad
would cry out in an animal voice
like a coyote
bereft, her offspring lost.
This country is not my country,
and my country is not my country.
It was the hour of a new, unfathomable era
and still the man who sells water
called in the next street, agua, agua.
I heard my neighbor’s loom
thudding wood on wood,
and the blue heaven, pacific,
wordless, tented still over Oaxaca.
Sarah Van Arsdale
20 de enero, 2025, mediodía
Había esperado que el suelo temblara,
luego se agitara y se sacudiera,
los guijarros en mi calle se agrietan
revelando el infierno bajo mis pies.
Era la hora en que el mundo cambiaría.
Pero caminé hasta el mercado,
Y me encontré con el gran perro marrón,
Que dormía gordito como siempre en la sombra
Carajillo, lo llaman
Los comerciantes que lo alimentan.
Pasé frente a los carteles de lucha libre
Pegados en los postes de luz
Llamativos, tentadores.
Pasé por el nuevo café,
Y luego por el viejo, toda la calle
Perfumada del aroma a tortillas y lejía.
Había esperado que el muro que recorre el jardín—
Construido con enormes piedras
Que bajo la lluvia irradian verdes:
enebro y salvia, musgo y periquito—
Se agrietara, se resquebrajara, se rindiera.
Había esperado que la Virgen de la Soledad
gritara con voz animal
Como una coyote despojada de la perdida
de sus cachorros.
Este país no es mi país,
Y mi país no es mi país.
Era la hora de una nueva era insondable
y todavía el hombre que vende agua
gritaba en la calle de al lado agua, agua.
Oía el telar de mi vecino
golpeando madera contra madera,
y el cielo azul, pacifico,
sin palabras, todavía flotaba
sobre Oaxaca.
—Translated by Andrea de la Rosa
Sarah Van Arsdale is the author most recently of the poetry collection Catch and Release (Finishing Line Press, 2024), which is illustrated with her own watercolors. Her first novel, Toward Amnesia (Riverhead Hardcover, 1996) was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction. Van Arsdale teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University. Her current project is a weekly collection of watercolor interpretations of photos from The New York Times. She lives in New York City and Oaxaca, Mexico.
Andrea de la Rosa is a writer from Puebla, Mexico who lives in the state of Oaxaca. She currently works as a Spanish teacher for foreigners.
Andrea de la Rosa es una escritora Poblana que radica en el estado de Oaxaca. Actualmente trabaja como profesora de español para extranjeros.
Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.
Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.
If you like Second Coming and you want to support the work of Indolent Books, consider making a donation to Indolent Arts, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor of Indolent Books.
Second Coming is a section of Beachcomber Mike. To unsubscribe from a section:
1. Navigate to your account Settings page via www.substack.com/settingsand click on the publication you want to make changes to.
2. Slide the toggle next to each section you'd like to stop receiving emails or app notifications from. A gray toggle indicates that notifications will be off for that section.
 | A guest post by
|
 |
|
what a wonderful array of contrasts--beauty, terror, political and earth upheval. I particularly like "scent of tortillas and bleach" in bringing home the contrasting life and loss