“The Principle of Decay,” 15/15 from 21st Century Retablo. 11.7″ x 16,” mixed-media on archival paper, 2005-06. Permanent collection, USC Fisher Museum of Art.

POEM:

the principle of decay

pressure exceeds all meaning    and all that is down there/
throughout the celestial empire, plans are never made, only/
executed          “if it was your life you’d care”          faith/
felled by death sounds echoes through man-/
made caverns    overhead, carnivorous birds circle         I held/

hands soiled by the erroneous belief in resurrection/
or at least rest     belies the concrete truth spelled out in shattered/
craters made with bullets        spent casings spread beneath/
weave a heavy, unstable blanket, held together only by principle:/
rapid decline, short lifetime     properties of the radioactive     I see/

the truth     she was born of decay     she came to a place not free/
of blemish or flaw, naturally made by water        nonsense/
wounds heal when brushed with Chimayo dirt, not/
spittle from a broken mouth    and all that is down there/
pressures meaning to reveal itself          radioactive       “I am/

now a sojourner          born of the reactive/
violent by process and principle”/