July 31, 1988-San Antonio Express-News

In despedida, sweet sorrow

Adios, San Antonio de Béjar! I sing it within the strains of swans and swallows caressing the very wind with feathery words and feelings. I feel you in my poet's mind, sense you within the heartbeat at your many enclaves of humanity celebrating a never-ending notion of festivity in barrios and mercados; and I find you within galleries galore and a lovely river walk. Your map of this nation in front of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center speaks to you as I retrace my steps in every state execpt Hawaii on the concrete. Your Institute of Texan Cultures is a multifaceted song, while the Mexican Cultural Institute graces Chicanos with a deeper understanding of the rich and lush cultures of Mexico. The poetry at UTSA was a joyful outcry, while the Young Pegasus Contest for youth speaks loudly of the inherent power latent in your heartbeat.

SO MUCH TO REMENBER

Late-night drinks to the music of the West Side Horns, with Rodarte and Clifford jamming while Richard Garcia explores his ax chopping up a storm, and the Jazzmanian Devils brew a heady note of soulful beauty. Ay, querido pueblo, with Rosita serenading the world, and there is so much that I can never finish saying. Family is out there for me, San Anto, and the blood beats its own ancestral songs, and I feel complete as I go. No rencor or harsh feelings, for we have served each other and there is love still singing So many friends here now, and I feel the sadness of pending separation as we go. My children speak in resonant tones as they imagine cousins unknown out in a land of cactus, desert and dunes, with a gigantic granite beacon to cast its cooling shadow on our brows. I think back to other turbulent eras when a movement was exploding, and the pain no longer haunts me. It is time to move, to uncover new perspectives and to delve deeper into the lore of blood and human meaning.

It is also time to celebrate, for life is brief for each of us and the world is a majestic concatenation of possibilities. El Paso will be home for whatever time we spend there, but it will be but one of the many homes we have had and will probably have.

A SENSE OF PURPOSE

Each home has given me direction, a sense of purpose. I leave here with a joyful smile, for it was good and painful. Letters of appreciation came to me, with gentle words of loving kindness. Other letters poked fun at my GED and Ph.D., and my column's computer label became KLDRGED, an assertion of the joy I take in my non-traditional ways and views.

I ambled through your many quays and nooks, feeling the blues wafting over the East Side and moving to the conjunto notes in barrio bars and ice houses. The Argyle Club was a poignant moment of enjoyment, and your museums and institutes broadened my mind even as I wrote passionate questions.

I am a poet who needs to question all intents and purposes - that is quite simply the only way my eyes can see.

As I go, I also want to thank the many people who acted out of a fine and professional understanding: the media- both print and broadcast which treated me with fairness. The people who frequented our lives at PAPERBACKS ... y Más! Bookstore, the ones in little taquerías, the compas who wove philosophical barrio tales in between sips of beer.

And all those poets and artists who dreamed beauty among the books as the power of music proliferated about a city respected in the Chicano world beyond Texas.

GRANDFATHERLY TERMS

We take a bit of you, San Anto, in the beauty of the child - Natividad Nekáme - who gave me the gift of love in grandfatherly terms. We take the friendship and the joy of peoples' poetry in pigments brown, black and white. We travel as a "literary-migrant family" (in the words of Nephtalí) and we carry much cultural baggage from the tales of Chista, Roy, Sandra, Len, Rosanne, the Zombies of Burroland and the Zippys of Tacoland while the many tastes of Fiesta, Festival and Riverwalk condiments spice up the gargantuan taco from Rolando's packed at the back of my mind.