Colors of Life - Luis J. Rodriguez

This week, we are honored to have Luis J. Rodriguez back on the Poetic Resurrection Podcast. Luis reads his poem, Always Running. This poem describes the hardships of poverty, love loss, and how Luis dealt with his experiences. We discuss the difficulties of growing up in the hood, living in tenements full of roaches, rats, and despair.

Always Running

All night vigil.

My two-and-a-half-year-old boy

and his 10-month-old sister

lay on the same bed,

facing opposite ends;

their feet touching.

They looked soft, peaceful,

bundled there in strands of blankets.

I brushed away roaches that meandered

across their faces,

but not even that could wake them.

Outside, the dark cover of night tore

as daybreak bloomed like a rose

on a stem of thorns.

I sat down on the backsteps,

gazing across the yellowed yard.

A 1954 Chevy Bel-Air stared back.

It was my favorite possession.

I hated it just then.

It didn’t start when I tried to get it going

earlier that night. It had a bad solenoid.

I held a 12-gauge shotgun across my lap.

I expected trouble from the Paragons gang

of the west Lynwood barrio.

Somebody said I dove the car

that dudes from Colonia Watts used

to shoot up the Paragons’ neighborhood.

But I got more than trouble that night.

My wife had left around 10 p.m.

to take a friend of mine home.

She didn’t come back.

I wanted to kill somebody.

At moments, it had nothing to do

with the Paragons.

It had to do with a woman I loved.

But who to kill? Not her–

sweet allure wrapped in a black skirt.

I’d kill myself first.

Kill me first?

But she was the one who quit!

Kill her? No, think man! I was hurt, angry. . .

but to kill her? To kill a Paragon?

To kill anybody?

I went into the house

and put the gun away.

 

Later that morning, my wife came for her things:

some clothes, the babies. . . their toys.

A radio, broken TV, and some dishes remained.

I didn’t stop her.

There was nothing to say that my face

didn’t explain already.

Nothing to do. . . but run.

 

So I drove the long haul to Downey

and parked near an enclosed area

alongside the Los Angeles River.

I got out of the car,

climbed over the fence

and stumbled down the slopes.

A small line of water rippled in the middle.

On rainy days this place flooded and flowed,

but most of the time it was dry

with dumped garbage and dismembered furniture.

Since a child, the river and its veins of canals

were places for me to think. Places to heal.

Once on the river’s bed, I began to cleanse.

I ran.

 

I ran into the mist of morning,

carrying the heat of emotion

through the sun’s rays;

I ran past the factories

that lay smack in the middle

of somebody’s backyard.

I ran past alleys with overturned trashcans

and mounds of tires.

Debris lay underfoot. Overgrown weeds

scraped my legs as I streamed past;

recalling the song of bullets

that whirred in the wind.

 

I ran across bridges, beneath overhead passes,

and then back alongside the infested walls

of the concrete river;

splashing rainwater as I threaded,

my heels colliding against the pavement.

So much energy propelled my legs

and, just like the river,

it went on for miles.

 

When all was gone,

the concrete river

was always there

and me, always running.

 

Luis Rodriguez, “Always Running” from “The Concrete River,” 1991 Curbstone Books

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