Pour Nohemi Gonzalez et Michelli Gil Jáimez,
Ocelocíhuatls.
Pour Patricia Latour et Francis Combes de cœur au cœur.
Xánath
Caraza
Guest Blogger: Lucha Corpi
 |
|
OCELOCÍHUATL by Xanath Caraza (Mouthfeel Press, 2015)
|
The title of Xánath Caraza’s poetry
collection, Ocelocíhuatl (Mouthfeel Press, 2015), combines the meaning of Ocelot, a mid-size feline of the jaguar family,
with that of Cíhuatl, the Nahuatl word for woman. Ocelocihuatl is the “Jaguar Woman.”
Ocelots are solitary felines. Their vision
is as keen in the dark as in sunlight. Comfortably resting on a high tree
branch or cooling off in streams, they are air, water and earth creatures. Despite
urban encroachment on their diverse habitats, the jaguar species have managed
to survive in the tropical areas of Mexico, Central and South America, and the forests
of Southwestern United States.
The
Olmec, Mayan and Aztec civilizations revered jaguars as mighty hunters and
beings who were able to move between worlds—environments—with ease. So shamans conjured
the jaguar’s spirit—nagual--to co-exist
with theirs as one and endow them with the vision and the skills to survive in
two distinct worlds, to protect themselves from the evil of others, and to preserve
that which is sacred. Ocelocihuatl is
one of those shamans, transformed by her nagual
into the Jaguar Woman.
The
central poem that provides Caraza’s collection with its title is
“Ocelocihuatl”. We see Jaguar Woman at
first as the animal in her natural tropical habitat, the place of origin. She
feels the humidity in the morning air, then enjoys the luscious green tapestry
of the jungle bathed by summer rains. She tastes life’s liquid bounty as she
gently bites into the “throbbing unsuspecting heart.” As her nagual begins to transform the shaman,
her hands reach for the alphabet of a new day and rip apart the veil of
opalescent mist covering the pages. She makes “poetry” hers. She breathes in
the scent left by others, those no longer present in her world(s).
Because
the poem “Ocelocihuatl” is not the first poem in the book and, actually, comes
half way through it, I was intrigued by Caraza’s decision to place such a
pivotal poem there. The organization of a poetry collection is the poet’s way
to guide us as we enter, move through and exit each poetic space and to lead us
to the places where we need to be to grasp the poet’s intention, her vision.
With that in mind, I read the poems again, but this time in reverse from last
to first poem. I realized that I had been on two journeys, one that took me
north and east, the other south and west, intersecting at the place of origin at
the moment of rebirth, described in the poem “Ocelocihuatl.”
In terse narrative, incantatory or intensely
lyrical poems, Caraza chronicles Jaguar Woman’s odyssey to the sacred places of
the heart, in Bosnia, The United States, and Mexico in modern times. We journey
with her to faraway places where the spirit—wounded by injustice, strife,
violence and death—must take refuge to remember and to heal. There, she grieves
for the dead, for those persecuted, banished or “disappeared” beyond hope of
ever being found.
Ocelocihuatl
also pays homage to the survivors, the Jaguar Women of the world: The activist Aida
Omanovic in the once multiethnic city of Mostar, Bosnia, almost devastated three
decades before, during the Croatian-Bosnian ethnic conflict. With aching arms
and bare hands, Aida-Ocelocihuatl dragged the bodies of 27 of her compatriots
and dear friends killed during the conflict. With no other tools than her bleeding
fingers, she dug their graves, buried them in an orchard, and planted 27 cherry
trees, one next to each grave to commemorate their sacrifice.
Through
the liquid eyes of mothers searching for their lost sons to bring them home, Ocelocihuatl
looks for the familiar faces of “the disappeared,” the 43 student teachers in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico, who were taken by a drug cartel in cahoots with the
local authorities for protesting their corruption. “The 43” haven’t yet been
found, dead or alive. In Missouri, Jaguar Woman makes hers the anger and sorrow
of Michael Brown’s mother, relatives, friends and hundreds of people, raising
their voices in protest at the systematic killing of African American youth by
the police.
Ocelocihuatl returns to the place of origin,
the Mexican jungle, to renew. From there she heads south, to recover the
ancestors’ footsteps as they journeyed to their temples and other sacred places
in pre-Columbian times from trodden paths along the Puuc Route. She does not
return to the place of origin this time. Instead, she seeks the company of
poets, dead or alive. The last poem in the collection is an ode to the Mexican
poet Octavio Paz. “Paz” also means “peace.” The poem is indeed a tribute to the
poet. But it is also an affirmation of her belief that peace among peoples is possible.
For
Ocelocihuatl, Woman-Jaguar and poet, all winding paths eventually lead back to
that secret site, where the poems are the seeds, “dark tide of syllables (that)
spreads over the paper” and break through to the “sub-soil of language” to take
roots, extend limbs to the heavens, blossom and bear fruit in the sacred places of the heart.
¡Enhorabuena, Xanath Caraza!
Encore!
Lucha Corpi
Oakland,
California, 2015
Ocelocíhuatl by Xánath Caraza (Mouthfeel Press, 2015)
Translated by Sandra Kingery
Cover Art by Pola Lopez
Ocelocíhuatl by Xánath Caraza (Mouthfeel Press, 2015)
Translated by Sandra Kingery
Cover Art by Pola Lopez
