In my mind, I fashion so many Hacendados of the 18 and 1900’s as the stacks of jeering pigs in angry birds.
Appointed grubs, farming shit to roll in
Laughing and drunk with their own delusions of machismo
bastards of the Spanish, French and American imperialists
Appeasing those who’d support or enhance their claims
Trails of scum throughout the paperwork
Land re-formed into stacks before them

A seed grew circa 1879 in this fertilized earth
Discontent, yes, maltrust, of course
But also
a tiger cub
His parents were earthen monuments of love and strength
Hard day workers of older ways, adjusting to modern life
That modernity was oppression
And this child saw it in every line of his parents’ faces
In every dusty crack of their hands
As if everything taken from the land and community around them
Was simultaneously taken from their bodies, not their eyes

Yes, the boy knew struggle from conception
Inherited strength and learned the world quickly
He was a new sunrise everywhere he visited
A breath reset to this moment
His visits lifted weight and lightened rooms, ranches
and from the first sight of them burned heavy in haciendas

The unspoken prince
kingdom of a breaking town rotting in fast forward by fingers of manifest destiny

A charmer, horse whisperer and bullfighter
Playboy of depleted plains
Rebel of his imposed world
smile like a dagger in the heart
Unsheathed with great care as swift as it was a noble weapon

At 17, on some small adventure, a letter came
His father was leaving him a bit of land, 9 siblings, a mother
all of their hopes fell onto him like a tree on a wooded path
he never thought about dodging it
and rose to meet it hands first on a horse back to Morelos
the cub was growing but hadn’t yet shown his fangs

The elders of Annencuilco
Scarred lions of withering food chain
Fenced outside of so called “civilization”
Aging Statesmen of the sugarcane plantations
Wise, strong, righteous
And worn by a lifetime of fight
Their burned and bloodied efforts
Heavy with imbalance and confusion of political process
and the accumulation of wealth

These majestic statues of worthy intent
Gathered in a kiln like room
Raising hardening hands before the townspeople
Honorable workers as certain of their elders as rock and sun
One hand to their hearts and one toward a new steward
Someone who’d stand up for them
Incorruptable, wily and fierce
They needed a tiger

this Native tongued son was someone you could trust
quietest in the room
loudest of loyalty
words chosen and administered careful as bullets
He’d let them pour when need be
never holding back a pressing truth

him.

He’d work the facets of government
Present indisputable evidence
Do everything they presumed he was incapable of
And as they sneered more and more away from the people
And bent more and more obvious to the weight of landowners gold
He roared...and was heard throughout Mexico

They’d come to their newly attained land
to find a tiger before a hoard of riders with guns
A liquid pace of prowess at its borders
Cursive in his movement
“you didn’t do the right thing, so we did”