The Mustard Tree
We have
spent days in the sun, and I have traveled along side my mother and my younger
brother. I have held her hand from the beginning of our journey that the sweat
of our hands have wrinkled the palm and fingers pf my hand. We have been on the
move since the last raid of our pueblo, at the height of the revolucion, the
Spanish troops have been moving over the land as death its self. I have been
the byproduct of this insurrection. My father was a Spanish man and my mother
an indigenous woman, and I was a mixto, the breed between civility and
savagery, terms that at no point reflect their characters. Stratified by the
three classes no sum of wealth, land, or office can move you. You are
differentiated by your skin and your tongue, we both spoke Spanish but my
mother spoke Nahuatl, the language of our ancestors, a gift that my father gave
us who is now in what the Spanish called heaven and my mother peace.
We are now
two souls roaming for a place to rest, after my mother had been a victim of the
lust, and savagery of the Spanish soldiers. The image is vivid and fresh within
my memory as she groaned in pain and rebellion, as she fought the hands that
pulled her to the floors, and the result of such crime against her nature was
the product of life that now beats to the rhythm of her heart, within her. We
have come to a stop and my mother threw her body with delicacy in order not to
harm the life within her and the my younger brother that was neatly swaddled
with a colorful woven sarape made from the cotton that my mother her
self grew. Her knees touched the floor.
“Look mija feel the earth its alive” she said as she
took the soil near a mustard tree where we took refuge from the sun, as she
allowed the soil flow between her fingers over and over again now digging a
hole.
“Mija, do you still remember the story of how our
ancestors know where to stop”
“Yes, you told me that they walked for centuries until they found
an eagle feasting on a snake, on a cactus, on a lake, yes I know the story.”
“Well that is how Tenochtitlan came to be, and this is now
our city, just look beyond”
I looked into the clear horizon and encountered a faint image
in the distance over the valley, my eyes took time to adjust as the heat
drained my vision and heat clouded my sight. That image revealed it self to be
a hut followed by many more. After I have gazed beyond I turned back my
attention to my mother who mindlessly continued to dig as she looked in my
direction. The hole was now deep to the point where I could see the roots of
the mustard tree, its intricate work resembled such that of my mother's sarape,
that held comfortably my younger brother whom she had carried on her back in
our journey. She took him and placed him in the hole she had created with her
hands.
“Look mija” she said as I held onto her hands filled
with soil, and grasped onto the trunk of the tree.
“Nestra Madre, talks to us in many was, her acts are
the words, and she has spoken to us, she brought us here, to the soil that
would drink from us and we from it. Let us give thanks to her and she thanks
us. She took Juan from us and she gave us a new member.”
I looked at
her but I could not hold the tears that would serve as the water to cool my
eyes, the sorrow, and the water that would water the soil of this tree along
with my mothers. His death came about that night my mother was raped, he had
killed my brother, as he ripped him from my arms, and whom the soldiers made me
watch as my mother's dignity broke apart. We covered the soil and stared at the
mustard tree. She sang a hymn that had transcended in her language in homage of
those who passed, as she reclined. We looked back and moved forward.
