Today a poem by the Mexican-American poet, Juan Delgado.
Gatekeepers
by Juan Delgado
by Juan Delgado
1.
A crow gliding over a ravine was
The sign his eyes were waiting for.
They thought they were ready to cross.
The tumbleweed listening to a cricket
And seeing a line of ants snaking in
Was the figure of his younger sister,
Huddled by him, asking for a campfire.
They made it as far as a roadside store
And held their hands over the electric coils.
When asked if they were going to buy anything,
Their tongues broke off into halves
And fell to the floor like Popsicles.
2.
My father says I was born to translate
What he could only nod to for years.
He also says that God made a mistake
By blurring out his eyes first because
He can hear her asking for a blanket.
She saw a church adorned with hipbones,
Sun-bleached, and beautiful as curved jewelry.
She dreamt of its wide doors, and after dipping
Her finger in His palm, she felt His warmth.
My father says that cactus needles fly
And burn like the memory of lost ones,
Then he tells me I was born to study
The sand trails and notice when footsteps
Drag and turn to knee and handprints.
Those are ones I need to follow, he says.
From A Rush of Hands. Copyright © 2003 Juan Delgado / University of Arizona Press
____
About the poet: Juan Delgado (b. 1960) is a professor of creative writing, Chicano literature, and poetry at the California State University, San Bernardino. Juan-Delgado (photo by Anthony-Arcinas) 
Mexican American poet Juan Delgado first started coming to the United States with his family when he was a child. He attended California State University, San Bernardino, where he studied accounting before discovering writing and majoring in English. He earned an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, where he was a Regents Fellow. Delgado’s collections of poetry are Green Web (1994), selected by poet Dara Weir for the Contemporary Poetry Prize at the University of Georgia; El Campo (1998); A Rush of Hands (2003); and Vital Signs (2013), a book about his hometown of San Bernardino, winner of the American Book Award, given by the Before Columbus Foundation. His poems have been included in the anthology Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today’s Latino Renaissance (1998). Delgado’s work often portrays the realities of the immigrant experience, with its attendant poverty, hardships, and love. In El Campo, Delgado’s poems about Mexican farmworkers and their families are accompanied by paintings by Simon Silva. Rosa Martha Villarreal, reviewing A Rush of Hands for Tertulia, noted the “muted images of personal sorrow and terrified wonder,” adding that Delgado “takes images from the community of shadows, the undocumented immigrants, and gives substance to their being.”
Mexican American poet Juan Delgado first started coming to the United States with his family when he was a child. He attended California State University, San Bernardino, where he studied accounting before discovering writing and majoring in English. He earned an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, where he was a Regents Fellow. Delgado’s collections of poetry are Green Web (1994), selected by poet Dara Weir for the Contemporary Poetry Prize at the University of Georgia; El Campo (1998); A Rush of Hands (2003); and Vital Signs (2013), a book about his hometown of San Bernardino, winner of the American Book Award, given by the Before Columbus Foundation. His poems have been included in the anthology Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today’s Latino Renaissance (1998). Delgado’s work often portrays the realities of the immigrant experience, with its attendant poverty, hardships, and love. In El Campo, Delgado’s poems about Mexican farmworkers and their families are accompanied by paintings by Simon Silva. Rosa Martha Villarreal, reviewing A Rush of Hands for Tertulia, noted the “muted images of personal sorrow and terrified wonder,” adding that Delgado “takes images from the community of shadows, the undocumented immigrants, and gives substance to their being.”
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