Category: Loss

Loss, Love, Mexican traditions, poetry

My Native One/Mi Indigena – Poem

Mona Alvarado Frazier

by Daniel Esparza-lowriderarte.com

As evening falls I close my eyes in slumber

Allowing myself to swim this ocean of memories

Chapters of love etched deep upon my being

All bitter sweet or sweet gone bitter

Fleeting passion, friendship adorned in tedium

Tepid nights of sighs quelling loneliness

Reticent reminiscences, specters in empty rooms

A requiem of illusive love defying end

The haunting image of my nameless muse

Spirit veneration of my palindrome poems

A song of truer times breaks the melancholy

Honeyed voice lifts the weight of silence

Solitude blessed by a sweet familiar whisper

    “Cradle your head on the heart of hope;

     sleep and dream my loving touch;

     embrace the promise we exist to keep;

     one day soon we will be forever…”

Poem by Frank de Jesus Acosta*

This poem makes me think of a loss and a future hope.

I imagine a 1940’s sultry blues melody accompanying these lyrics. Which makes the woman appropriate to the poem.

Poetry can metamorphize memories, “All bitter sweet or sweet gone bitter,” into a perspective where we pay homage to the feelings. Somewhat like the Alfred Lord Tennyson phrase:

“Tis better to have loved and lost. Than never to have loved at all.”

For me, the pairing of this art piece and poem illustrates the Mexican concept of death.

In Aztec culture, they believed life on earth to be something of an illusion – death was a positive step forward into a higher level of conscience. Skulls were a positive symbol, not only of death but also of rebirth.

Skulls were a positive symbol, not only of death but also of rebirth.

And it is in the rebirth, that one has hope.

*reprinted with permission by Frank Acosta.

 

 

Authors, Books, Chingona, Death, Ester Hernandez, Grief, Have You Seen Marie?, Loss, Sandra Cisneros

Have You Seen Marie?

Mona Alvarado Frazier

sandracisneros.com

“For those without a mother, without a father, without even a dog to make a bother.”

This quote is on the dedication page of Sandra Cisneros new book, HAVE YOU SEEN MARIE? 

The crux of the story is about a woman’s search for a cat who goes missing in the aftermath of her mother’s death. 

There is so much to love about this book before one even begins reading. From the first page of illustrations, by Ester Hernandez, artista extraordinaire, I was captured by their serenity and vibrancy. (She is in the photo, on the left of my favorite chingona, Sandra Cisneros). 

Some of the images in the book reminded me of Japanese woodcuts. Others, vivacious colored pencil drawings. The illustrations perfectly accompany the melodic text and characterize the many  people and moods found in the novel. 

An overriding sense of grief and loss weave throughout the story. There are touches of humor, but overall the sadness is palpable. I sighed in some sections, teared up in others.The author calls her book a 

                 “fable for grownups,” and for “orphans in midlife.”  

But I can see parents reading this to children, older kids reading to younger, and all of them enthralled and touched by the story. 


Ms. Cisneros uses imagery, simile and metaphor better than most. Her words put a smile on my face when I read “…his truck backfiring like the Fourth of July, like always.” “…a squirrel flicked her tail like a housewife shaking a dirty dust rag.” “…silver women in their silver years laughed like bells.”

This is a book I will keep for years and no doubt re-read several times. It is worth buying the hardcover book for the beautiful illustrations. Also, do not skip the afterword and acknowledgements. There is a lovely story there too. 


I will buy another book and give it to my mother, who lost both of her parents before she was twelve years of age. She continues to feel the loss. I don’t know if it will help her or not, but I do know it will affect her in ways that are different from those who have not gone through this type of grief.  I hope that this quote will be true for her:


“There is no getting over death, only learning how to travel alongside it.” Sandra Cisneros 

 To hear from the author about why she wrote the book, click on this short interview:

You can find HAVE YOU SEEN MARIE? at amazon.com, B & N, or your favorite bookstore. Just so readers know: I have not been given a book in exchange for a review. I just love to post information whenever I read a really good book.