This poem was read at the funeral of Dr. Sánchez

music, song, and poetry 
            in honor of 
        Ricardo Sanchez 
     . . . the vigorous 
   sun's rays penetrate 
 both box and lamenters 
    as ascending vapors 
           commingle...

 Mt. Carmel Cemetery
   e.p.t . . . . 9.6.95


   Soul Canto  ©1995 by Roberto Barcena

          *
I am
that reflection
that balances
floatingly traveling
past stars
that
incessantly
pirouette
jazzingly
with every
verbed wave
crushing agaisnt
the walls
of orbiting
particles.

Earth is a
dancing note
giving
voice to
my thought;
an echo
of
my silence
cubed

Bursting forth
my
thoughtfeelings
to merge
into mindsoul

And lift all bowed
heads while
leveling the
skyward
ones.

(Pain is
a contrived
reflection
of the
picture and
the word.)

            **
I love human
capacity for
art and culture.
The vitality
of mindsoul
energizes my
sojourns

Seeking the ripened
fruit to squeeze
the milky juice
  rushing,
  gushing,
  busting,
from bubbled verbs

Through poet's pores.
Big-banged
translations
focus the lunacy
of cauterized
song and dance

Kept from
being juggled
in milky space
at entelechial
passageways;

Instilling anger
of human limitations, 
of human desolations, 
and despair.

           ***
On this tightrope
this overpass, 
this border of juxtaposed 
intersected mirrors 
I have journeyed.

I have journeyed
this tightrope
of the Rio Bravo;
went beyond the
jurisdictions
of two worlds,

Beyond the
perspectives
of two entities,
beyond the
historicity
of seperate
civilizations,
beyond the duality
of life and death
itself.

As I balanced myself
between two brains
floatingly caressing
the world;
I scorched the
doubts,

The hesitations, 
the fears and 
forged a will 
to live, to sing, 
and to keep my 
word from being 
snatched into 
empty voids.

I sculptured and 
I left a cosmic 
mold.  Not to be 
filled with 
the materiality 
of silver, bronze, 
or even gold;

But to be poured with 
a boiling, sizzling 
creativity of spir 
it an endur 
ing will to be 
strong . . . 
a sparkle 
in one's 
eye
.

.

.