Brenda Venezia: November 2021 Poet of the Month
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
Painting: The Great Arvin Dust Storm of 1977
Water and Mixed Media on Cast Iron, 2019
They say to know it’s about to happen, peel yourself open to the tender
mumble of wind across the land, heat that surrounds like a thirsting
crowd on a waterless day, the press of the sun a commandment
against our foundation, parched citrus bodies demanding respite
from our perennial gulps, one moment more of our God wanting
this patch of ours the hottest one for miles, what happens
when we cannot see the sun. It’s a lot to conjure, we know:
that we might be made in an image so perfectly
dry we will kick up our very own whirlwind, spin
a storm of our own, summon the air around us, draw
the earth below us, build ourselves like eternity
for the next great gust that comes along to knock
us around and—póntelas!—up we’ll fall into something
they don’t call a devil for nothing. They used to tell
us storms are nothing for impact, that we might expect
mere moments of their reign, like this was supposed
to make us less afraid, but look at where we are now, weathered
like no one has ever seen, no shortage of thirst,
no scarcity of breaths seared crisper,
quicker, ideal, even, for lifting us into the frenzy
we need, the celebration dance of droplets
traversing the pan when it is hot enough
to nourish, each move an evaporation that scolds
with a tssss like air between the tongue
and the teeth of your dead when you
tell them you are tired, you are scared, you honor
them, of course, you bought them pan
dulce and flowers but you cannot possibly toil
anymore. Tsssssss. You come from a long line of artists
of this land, geniuses mis-taken like ungreased machines,
whose storms should remind like a masterpiece,
infinity-rowed grapevines milked ash
by labored ash, and still
they have to teach you to descend
like their descendents?
Seguimos adelante, like a dust
storm keeps hold
of its debris,
the very matter
that makes it, for they
are your atmosphere
and you are the soil
no one can see
the wind
without.
Brenda Venezia is a queer xicana Fresno writer. She teaches at Fresno City College and is the director of Fresno Women Read. Her work has appeared in The Boiler, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Collagist, Puerto Del Sol, Luna Luna Magazine, and elsewhere.
