soul-poetry

Curandera*

by Pat Mora

They think she lives alone

on the edge of town in a two-room house

where she moved after her husband died

at thirty-five of a gunshot wound 

in the bed of another woman. The curandera

and the house have aged together to the rhythm 

of the desert.

She wakes early, lights candles before

her sacred statues, brews tea of yerbabuena**.

She moves down her porch steps, rubs

cool morning sand into her hands, into her arms.

Like a large black bird, she feeds on 

the desert, gathering herbs for her basket.

Her days are slow, days of grinding

dried snake powder, of crushing

wild bees to mix with white wine.

And the townspeople come, hoping

to be touched by her ointments

her hands, her prayers, her eyes.

She listens to their stories, and she listens 

to the desert, always, to the desert.

By sunset she is tired. The wind

strokes the strands of long gray hair,

the smell of drying plants drifts

into her blood, the sun seeps

into her bones. She dozes

on her back porch. Rocking, rocking.

At night she cooks chopped cactus

and brews more tea. She brushes a layer

of sand from her bed, sand which covers

the table, stove, floor. She blows

the statues clean, the candles out.

Before sleeping, she listens to the message

of the owl and the coyote. She closes her eyes

and breathes with the mice and snakes

and wind.

* a curandera is a healer

** peppermint