Nancy Mercado
I Come to See for Myself:
On the Anniversary of Hurricane Maria
I fly in to see for myself
below, blue tarps over the homes of my nation
like those silver blankets that cover the souls
of Mayan and Arawak children locked inside cages
on the US mainland I left behind
arriving home, I enter a mass of confusion
plantain crops walloped in their places of birth
five-foot-tall grass rebelliously advancing to heaven
my mother’s lemon tree on her last leg
hunched over, barely breathing
I witness it for myself
splintered wooden electrical poles
held up by a neighbor’s twine
trees arrowed through one another
now growing sideways, surviving.
Not the palm trees though
the palm trees chose victory or death
no in-between half-hearted living
some growing new hair
others simply guillotined
by Maria’s detonation.
I walk into the new growth of forest
detect the low lamenting sounds of the injured there
witness the anger etched into the undulating
mountains surrounding me in the distance.
I see the US cavalry arrived just in time
Cortez and Columbus repackaged
into a 21st Century nightmare
armies in metallic flying machines
using talking devices, exchanging messages
in a foreign language through invisible airways
I see the cavalry arrived to help
themselves to the casinos they built
to hurl paper towels at the local mortician
to seize their opportunity to maximize
on the extinction of the natives
keeping them in drawn-out darkness
with no power to run hospitals
no shelter, with no water
I cross the land
from West to East, South to North
to see the revelers and the ruined for myself
to lend an ear to survivors and to the dead
see shuttered schools for miles along the route,
I run out of fingers
on which to count them all
part of the plan to ruin us
a small voice reminds me.
I walk along the turquoise shore
lined of amputated homes
crumbled fences
collapsed doorways into the sea
inside, bits and pieces of families remain
their vestiges now
across the Atlantic at the opposite end
back in Ponce, I sit in my mother’s rocking chair
watch my neighbor’s hummingbirds
who’ve arrived to visit her ruby coral bells
I think of my father’s strength
in his humility, he walked in silence
built a house to withstand
a cyclonic catastrophe.
I’ve seen for myself
the natives are
the majesty of this world
together they’ve cleared the paths
sawing, hewing through mammoth
barriers of deceit and loathing
retrieved their own water
traversing the inundation
of Washington’s elite
that vowed to drown them
they went about their lives
by the light of a candle
or an old wooden light pole
they stitched back together
with all the love on Earth
maneuvering through a world of cadavers
inside Maria’s eye
amid the tantrums of the privileged
a nation held its ground
now, raises its foundation
of ancestral eminence anew.
Journey from the Plague
Hellish sirens bend with distance
through a day’s grey mists
the sounds of birds emerge
claiming my mind’s eye
My childhood appears
my mother shields us from
freezing unbridled winds
using a butter knife
stuffing toilet paper into
our rattling cracked window frames
i follow her
mimic her at 7 or 8
i follow my mother from window frame
to porous window frame
Then
sirens
dissolve my memory again
Returned to my cloistered quarantine
do I hurl my self
into a shuttered city
emptied hollowed out
save for ambulances transporting the dead
birds and pigeons insects and mice
the trees and the flowers of spring?
The Wizard has Left the Planet
for Steve Cannon
Walking early morning New York City streets
inside my memories
I stumble down into the subway...
Hey Steve!
Hey Nancy! How you doin?
Haven’t seen you in a thousand years! Have you heard from Ishmael?!
draws from his dangling cigarette
laughs and laughs
the poetic answer
the Wizard
his throne
a weathered sofa
young subjects congregate ‘round
they chatter in low smoky hums…
Fortune shows up at odd hours to stare at you square in the face.
I knew Steve here…
I’ll see Steve again in a thousand years.
Currently, Nancy Mercado’s critique of the Broadway musical West Side Story appears in Bigotry on Broadway (Baraka Books). She edited a special memorial section honoring the late founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Miguel Algarín; set for publication in KONCH Magazine this Spring 2022.
During the height of the COVID pandemic shortly after Algarín’s death, Mercado established and chaired the Miguelabration Committee; an organizing vehicle created to pay tribute to the late founder of the Nuyorican. Under her direction, the Miguelabration Committee held a groundbreaking six hour social media event via Zoom featuring poets and artists from around the world.
In 2018, Mercado was named one of 200 living individuals who best embody the work and spirit of Frederick Douglass by the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. She received the American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement presented by the Before Columbus Foundation in 2017.
Editor of the first Nuyorican Women Writers Anthology published in Voices e/Magazine of El Centro, Hunter College- CUNY, Mercado was featured on National Public Radio’s All of it, The Talk of the Nation, and the PBS NewsHour Special; America Remembers 9/11. She has authored, It Concerns the Madness, Las Tres Hermanas, and is the editor of if the world were mine.