RAY FOREMAN

Bapu

 
Beaten, starved into learning and producing, 
small boys work until they grow too large 
for the cramped dirt wells behind the looms.
Years later, their remains, minus their childhood, 
will be returned to their families.
 
Bapu, sitting shirtless on a wooden plank,
along with three other small boys bought 
or stolen from their parents, pokes his 
small slim fingers through the warp 
and pulls snippets of yarn which 
he knots in a blur with fingers worn pink, 
to make the famous hand-made carpets, 
the pride of the weavers of India.
 
The looms, strung with yarn like harp strings
tower over the young boys who drudge 
at the bottom of the pits everyday
for 12, 14, often, 16 hours. 
 
"2000 rupees is a good price for an 
eight year old boy," Bapu's father says to 
his mother who nods as tears well in her eyes. 
"The family will eat better and 
we can even buy a small radio.
Bapu will come back someday, 
but now, he must go on the bus with 
the other boys to Badhoi where the 
loom owners will teach him a trade. 
Bapu, be good and do as they tell you." 
 
At the edge of the sun dried plain 
the village barely breathes. Water buffaloes, 
tethered to wooden stakes, move nervously. 
Inside the mud-walled hut a family 
is tethered to a life of constant poverty.
 
From the adobe hut that has been 
his prison for two years, Bapu creeps 
into the night and scurries across 
the parched wheat field.
 
Rarely do the children escape; too young, 
too far from home, afraid, they are sealed 
to their loom by the stare and the lash.
 
Bapu, terrified, runs down the road 
until he feels the warmth of the rising sun. 
He knows it is time to hide himself.
The older boys warned him, a small boy 
with pink fingers stands out in the daylight. 
Bapu, hungry, lies down and waits for dark.
 
As the sun breaks, Bapu awakens screaming, 
the sting of a willow branch 
bites hungrily into his back. 
Strong hands grip him vise-like; 
his feet are tied with rough hemp.
 
At the hut the ritual is performed 
in front of the other boys as a lesson. 
The hands are not touched, only the soles 
of the feet meet the bamboo. 
 
Bapu will not run for a month;
later today he will tie knots, 
and tomorrow, the next day, 
and until one day someone will hear 
his tears as they fall to the ground.

copyright 2003 RAY FOREMAN

CHARLES RIES

Los Huesos

(the bones)

I sit with the dead tonight. I have
brought my father's tobacco and
my grandfather's beer. Between 
their tombstones, I light a sparkler
and (with eyes open) imagine them
standing and dancing before me. 
So I get up and dance with them,
turning, spinning, and falling to the
ground. As I catch my breath, I look
up to see their smiles shine down
like porcelain stars. They point at me 
"There's our boy, he's come to 
drink and smoke with us. He loves
the lost ones with a heart as big as 
heaven and inhales our graves as if
they were fields of red roses."
 
The beer widens my eyes, makes
the deep night opaque. Revealing 
a tribe of dead lovers who protect
us from devils and demons, insuring
our first communions and last rites,
ready to welcome us back home
with cold soft hands.
 
The graveyard is full. The living
and their dearly departed sit in tight
family circles telling old stories that 
recall ancestors whose names have
now been given to babies.
 
We pass funeral cards, rosaries, and 
wedding rings among us - tiny monuments
to people whose portraits hang along the
stairs leading to the cellar where we make
our candles, crush hot peppers, and shed
our tears. 
 
We slice lemon cake, eat chicken breasts,
and drink tequila in the Cemeterio de Santa
Rosa. The ghosts are all brown, except mine.
Pale faces who've passed over - German, 
pot bellied, serious white people, who, 
in life, had things to accomplish. 
 
We sing and dance to all the dead gone.
Mock death and remember a cast of bit
players who slip into our dreams with
whispers just before dawn.
 
As I pour my tequila into the earth I see 
their spirit mouths open and skeletons
rise to dance three feet above the ground.
White vapor swirling like clouds. Sweet
misty blankets that embrace the tombs
of my family.

copyright CHARLES RIES