I thought think yesterday of reminding you
the name of California came from the queen
of that land this land they called her Calafia

like what we call the red and white minibusses
and vans growling and grinding their gears
up and down the canyons and ramps

so many people working here so many waiting here
in another two weeks comes the festival of Guadalupe
and I am trying to write her for gringos to see

there are plenty of sites about her out there .
My work is taking shape at turingua.html or something.  It needs
be done by the 1st of next month, no?  Yes I say so.

Lines continue to encounter resistence in me in preparing
a collection to print this Christmas.  Including
some Moctezuma poems.  These have been
changing over the past week.  I have cut
about 30 percent of the 100.  Now
rewrite some.  Here's an example:

Omen : Titsauitl

For ten years the signs warned us
comets, fire, floods, drought, visions, prophecy

the weeping woman goddess cried out at night
-- my children my children where can you go now ? --

two headed monsters were seen, heard
babeling destruction and woe

a meteor stone hissed and sparked and
fell from the daytime sky

our own lake rose up in boiling waves
crashed against the building walls

the temple of god Uitsilopochtli
burned without any cause

-- mexicanos, bring water! -- we yelled

the people came running with jugs
but the flames only leapt higher .

Then the king himself beheld a strange, tall
bird with smoking stone mirror on its head

Motekujtsoma looked inside to see an army
making war coming toward him riding on deer

and when he looked again - it was gone .