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This obsession with clearing all, plus fallen leaves
Death to those who’ve forgotten the peace of the rake
Vanish the gardener who tends not, but just blows
Same to those who, in witches’ tales have left the broom
who the beauty of the carpet, they blow away
Sanctity to silence, the sky is a chapel
Imagine yourselves within Sainte-Chapelle
where all bright colors seen through its stained glass are leaves
If you must disrespect, cast yourselves away
or give up that corrupter of wind for a rake
and trash and ashes ought to be swept with a broom
for from that machine of yours, only evil blows
Your presence confirms that there is a god that blows
that an evil exists, corrupting this chapel
a fowl undertow who’s taken away your broom
We want all our seasons here, leave alone those leaves!
But if you must, please convert your god for a rake
or we’ll pray for the rapture to take you away
for we do not want our dust and leaves blown away
by your cruel machine, which here annoyance blows
with its piercing sound that’ll never sound like a rake
penetrating my cranium, my pure chapel
Thoughts become scattered as you carelessly blow leaves
reorienting requires silence as the only broom
Your god’s benevolence flew away on its broom
Satan couldn’t spur noise that wipes music away
Will I ever again hear the rustling of leaves?
Lucifer’s cries drowned out, just your idol’s blows
are audible, as in ruins lays this chapel
Perhaps without a pitchfork, I shall use a rake
to hunt you down, your new habits need a good rake
as if your ancestry had had a decent broom
Remember that this sky is our only chapel
under it nothing can be truly blown away
From nature only we shall allow windy blows
These tree gardens and streets are nothing without leaves
Don’t desecrate this chapel; remember the rake
Let the bristles of the broom collect mounts of leaves
don’t send them away; they’re only for nature’s blows
Omar Bárcena was born and raised straddling the line dividing Alta from Baja California, in the curiously named cities of Mexicali and Calexico, a bilingual, bicultural world of opposites. His book, Poemas desde el otro lado published in Spain but written while riding the LA Metro, is a collection of poetry dealing with those opposites splitting him. He’s been a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee for Flying Ketchup Press, which featured him in their trilingual anthology, The Very Edge Poems; his flash-fiction appeared in Issue 111 of Burningword Literary Journal, and was a finalist for the 2024 Harbor Review Chapbook Editor’s Prize. His second poetry collection, Naturaleza Urbana, will be published June of 2025, as well as a short story in an anthology from Palabra Herida of Colombia, Huellas del Norte. But despite all this, he always wished he could be Carrie, the original 1976 Carrie.
