HIGH NOON IN QAXACA
A las cuatro y a las cinco de la mañana
They are getting up and into the backs of old trucks
And heading into the city of Oaxaca
From all over the state of Oaxaca
They are standing up in the back of the trucks
Packed in perhaps twenty men and women
Standing up in the jolting trucks
A las siete de la mañana
They are all on the back roads heading for the city of Oaxaca
From all over the state of Oaxaca
They are silent as the trucks jolt along
Standing erect in the trucks with the high wooden sides
The men in their white stiff straw hats curled up at the edges
The men in the clothes they wear on Sundays or días de fiesta
The same clothes they wear on work days
Only the women are dressed up
Women in their best colorful costumes
In their beautiful colored dresses
red or ochre like the earth
For they are of the earth they are made of earth
They are the mothers of the small brown people
the women of the brown people packed in the trucks
The
abuelas y abuelitas
Hermanas y hijas y tías
They are the mothers and sisters and aunts and daughters
Of the short brown
obreros and
campesinos
Standing in the jolting trucks in the back roads
All over the state of Oaxaca
A las nueve de la mañana
They are on the first paved roads leading into the city of Oaxaca
Then they are on the two-lane highways to the city of Oaxaca
Standing silent in the open trucks
In their work trucks and in beat-up buses
Converging on the city of Oaxaca from all over the state of Oaxaca
With its sixty percent unemployment
They are the working men and women of the
Unidad Popular
And there are banners on the sides of some trucks and buses
Proclaiming their solidarity and their hard resolve
To change their world for the better
To change their lives for the better
The lives of the
pobres everywhere
Their deep resolve to liberate themselves
From centuries of stoop work for others
For the owners of everything
The
campos and
haciendas
The
mills and
molinos
The poor of the world in the liberation movements
In all the Third World countries of the world
A las diez de la mañana
They are entering the outskirts of the city
They are passing through the barrios
The broken-down barrios on the outskirts of the city
On the
periferia of the city of Oaxaca
The undersides of the city that the turistas never see
The junked-up outskirts of the machine shops and garages
And tin-roofed factories and truck repair shops
And Pemco filling stations
They are the people of the
Unidad Popular
Heading for the center of the city of Oaxaca
winding through all the side streets into the
centro
A las once de la mañana
They are all pouring into the Avenida de la Independencia
They have parked their trucks in the side streets and piled out
Into the Avenida de la Independencia
And there they come
A las once de la mañana
Here they come with a big brass band up front
With tubas and trumpets and drums
At the head or the forming columns of men and women
Pouring in from the side streets
Into the Avenida de la Independencia in the center of Oaxaca
And first come all the women in straight lines in the street
Striding or limping with solemn calm faces open faces
Looking with their dark brown eyes
At the ornate entrances and small elegant hotels
And seeing the well dressed people watching
From the sidewalks and doorways and windows
And all walking slowly and silent in their red and ochre costumes
The women of all ages so dignified
Walking in front of their men their
campesinos
Who now also come totally silent walking quiet
In long lines in their beat-up white hats
And they too are proud of their stirring solidarity
With the band up front blasting out their surging spirit
A las once de la mañana
They are coming and coming
Thousands and thousands of them
pouring into the Avenida de la Independencia
From all the side streets and far flung farms and haciendas
the
compañeras and
compañeros
Coming together here in the
Unidad Popular
And the men with their stolid faces
Looking out silent with their black brown eyes
Guarded and defiant in their silences
As they come marching six abreast
In endless lines of
campesinos and their sisters and mothers
A las once de la mañana
They are pouring into the huge plaza of the Zócalo
At the center of the city of Oaxaca
And they have no weapons at all
No guns or knives or machetes
They have left them all behind in their huts and
palapas
They have left their machetes stuck in the brown earth of their
campos
A las once de la mañana
They will know where to find their machetes if need be
Another time a later time
If they have not changed anything at a later time
When perhaps nothing has changed in their eternal slavery
And the Zócalo and the plaza in front of the Cathedral
Is filling up with the thousands and thousands
And in front of the Cathedral there are loudspeakers set up
And the speeches are beginning
The
gritos of the leaders
The cries of the labor leaders
And the working people of the whole state of Oaxaca
Are still packing into the plaza
And
a las doce de la mañana
The bells of the Cathedral that have been silent all the time
As the silent workers poured into the plaza
The cathedral bells now ring out
Echoing across the plaza
Across the Zócalo
And through the city of Oaxaca
And
a las doce de la mañana
The speeches of the peasant leaders of the people
Are raising their rough voices over the loudspeakers
And the air vibrates with their hoarse cries
While in the inner patio of the Hotel Monte Albán
The real leaders of this day of solidarity
The ones behind it all
The Union leaders
The
políticos
Are speaking in good Spanish to the press
And to the television cameras trained on them
In a corner of the huge hotel patio these real leaders
Of this great
manifestación
In immaculate white shirts
Are speaking straight into the television cameras
These leaders with education and white shirts
Are telling the press of Oaxaca and of all Mexico
Exactly what their
movimiento is all about
While outside in the plaza the indigenous speakers
Are still shouting over the speakers to the thousands and thousands
Their somehow innocent tough voices
Echoing against the Cathedral walls
And they are the real
compañeros of Flores Magón and of Zapata
The descendants of Magón and Zapata crying out
For more than the crust of their daily bread
While the “insiders” inside the hotel
The ones with their own agendas
Are telling the world
que pasa
In their confrontation with the owners of everything
They are moving the
movimiento where they want it to move
And they know how
promises made in the plazas
May be betrayed in the back country
Al mediodía de Oaxaca
Al mediodía de su vida
Al mediodía of the people of Oaxaca
At high noon in the life of the
pobres of Oaxaca
In the heart of their blood and passion.
BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI, UNC CLASS OF 1941
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