La Curandera

La Curandera

They think she lives alone

on the edge of town in a two-room house

where she moved when her husband died

at thrity-five of a gunshot wound

in the bed of another woman. The curandera

and house have aged together to the rythm 

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 into 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 grey hair

the smells of dying plants drift

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 brusches 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.

Pat Mora