zepata
Instalment 6
The expected storm arrives
Just before dawn
Zepata and Irena
Pull the tarp down upon them
It was either that or have it blown away
So high were the winds
The red-bandana clad creekets
had long ago retired to
their stow-away saddle bag
and if their legs had been
fine instruments
which in a way they were
the creekets would have put
them away
in velvet-lined music cases;
as it was, to the little mariachi band,
they just blew them off
like smoke from fired
pistols
This weather pattern was a frik
Zepata say to Irena
He nevair see one like
Cyclonic winds seem to blow
Around and around the mountain
A stream-rinsed red union suit
Hanging on a makeshift line blew off
Only to return fifteen minutes later
From the opposite direction
It had traveled around the mountain
Daylight slowly comes
But the rain and crying wind does not let up
El Dayo appears at their active
Bundle of tarp and he sounds
His battle call
Zepata and Irena look out from inside
Their waterproof canvas
Cocoon of rest and love
Raising himself again and again
On his powerful hind legs
Dayo gives a primeval battle cry
At the sky, daring it to strike
Him with lightning
His bulging eyes blazing
Zeus himself might refrain
From hurling a bolt at such a
Dreadnaught
For fear El Dayo would perhaps
catch it
In his frothing gaping mouth
And hurl it back
Zepata calls out to the drenched
Beast:
Issy Boy issy
Go get Mare
We liff in half an hour
Soon Dayo and Mare
stand waiting
And the terrible storm
Relents
Zepata checks the dynamite
Eet is try he proclaims
And with Irena breaks camp
Vowing never to forget that storm
And the jump-started Mexican saviour
Ponders its portent
Now mud is their greatest danger
It is too risky to ride
So Zepata and Irena walk
Beside their mounts
All morning they descend
In this way
In the early afternoon
They discover that the storm
Did not happen at the lower
Altitude
It had been a mountaintop
Electric cyclone only
Like nobody ever saw before
Zepata thinks it must
Have been a sight to see
From down below
And indeed the compadres
Had looked up from their campsite
And thought of Zepata and Irena
And offered prayers
for their safekeeping
The waters that had rushed
Down the mountain
Were torrential
And the air had taken on
A charged crispness
Following the high winds
That had swirled through
The compadres' tentative
repose
Zepata who was a simple Indian
with cause and effect
thought patterns at root
Divined the storm had been
Stirred by the pro-creative
Madness
Exhibited by humans and horses
In the night
After all, he mused
If a little Zepata or Irena
Was being conceived
Or a foal to match or even
Exceed Dayo and Mare's
Powerful exhuberances
Should it not storm?
These were all natural things
To the mind of Zepata
For himself he knew
That the inflammations
Stirred by Irena
and her surfeit of oil
Produced energy that not even
He, ZEPATA, could fully combust
Try as he might
He thought as he watched
Her riding ahead of him:
Here was an exciting fuel
That could never be burned
Completely
Irena possessed a life force
That commenced as female
Gateway of life physiology
That which every woman has
But in Irena's instance
A bellows of only guessed-at origin
Had blown her womanly propensities
Into a conflagration whose
Raging flames licked
The highest clouds and
Changed weather patterns
The Indians knew
The northern lights were caused
By a woman such as this
In the north, it was said,
there was such a woman
And in other parts
Of the world
Rainmakers, storm-causers
Interacting with mighty men
Their powers are released
This is what Zepata believed
How could he not believe it
As he watched Irena's
Buttocks ahead of him
Nudging and shunting
The hand-tooled saddle
He had rubbed to smoothness
himself
And presented to his Real Woman
It must be time for siesta
He mused
Irena felt his eyes upon her
And she smiled without turning
[dzd 7-23-98, revised 2-1-08]]
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