Ray Gonzalez's fifth collection of poetry takes the reader to the heart of the Chicano/American Southwest experience. His is the voice of the desert flowers, hardscrabble border cities, scorpions, snakes, adobes, petroglyphs, arroyos and mesas. The poems tell the stories of native peoples and invading Westerners, and the Chicano fathers and grandfathers who have long been silent.

The Grandfather

The grandfather goes down to the lanterns
and lights the stars.

He takes his bottle and recalls the rattler
he killed to make way for the family.

The garndfather shaves in the morning,
cuts his throat at night.

The blossom of what he knows
spills against the years of healing,

of going down
to the railroad lanterns

to light his aching arms and legs
with the ointment of his scars.

©BOA Editions, Ltd 1996

Available editions:
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Cloth ISBN: 1-880238-38-1
Price: $20.00
Publishing Date: January 1996
Paperback ISBN: 1-880238-39-x
Price: $12.50
Publishing Date: January 1996