Kosh’ tu’n Woo Mu’uch
¿Dónde está El Gran Sapo?
Where is the Great Toad Mu’uch, El Sapo Góngora?
Cha’a-cháak/Cha’a-cháak/Cha’a-cháak
Yuum Cháak/Mayan Rain Dios, Kosh’ tu’n Woo Mu’uch
El Sapo Góngora, The Great Toad with liquid skin and marble ojos
The Great Toad who hums to you, Dios de La Lluvia/Yuum Cháak
The Great Toad who strums those sweet vocals in the dark,
Enticing you with Sapo ballads to bring the floods for the harvest
En las montañas Yucatecas
El corazón de la gente está seco sin El Gran Sapo
The heart of the people is cracked and thirsty without The Great Toad
El Sapo! Are you dribbling your soccer ball
Through the city streets, jugando el fút
All supernatural, pasando por Yelamu Village?
Where the Mission Police Station now sits,
Perched on 17th and Valencia?
Your bodiless spirit bounces, cruising sideways
Lighting la mission vision
Do you ever run into the souls of Ohlone
Indígena hermanas y hermanos, emerging from
This moist Ohlone clay, old and fresh
Like Yuum Cháak’s nubes de agua?
The Mission Police Station
Where you went after you were illegally evicted and
Separated from your brother
You had no place
No place to go
No place to sleep
No place to exist
No place to breathe
You aren’t in Teabo, your Mayan Yucatan,
Laughing with your wife and three children as the youngest
Face paints with maíz molido
You aren’t in the field sleeping under a roof of emerald palm
En la montaña con tu gemelo, José, soñando de la cosecha,
La calabaza, y las semillas del pepino
At the station, you said to the officer behind the window:
“Send me home if I have to sleep in the streets.”
“Estoy solamente pidiendo ayuda/I am only asking for help”
Y la policía te respondió: “If you don’t leave, I’ll lock you up.”
Esa noche no sabías que te iban a matar, esos policías americanos
That night at the Mission Police Station you didn’t know
You didn’t know Sergeant Nate Steger and Officer Michael Mellone
Were going to roll up on you on 19th and Shotwell, while you sat
Minding your own business, chillin’ against a metal gate
They hunted you, as if for sport, like robots in a video game
Programmed to suffocate the living essence of your soul in 28 seconds flat
You were on the ground when Officer Mellone
Chose to claim you as his kill, change weapons,
Take out his gun, and forever extinguish your cosmic light
With a fatal blast to your forehead, that tore open
Your delicate cabeza, and tossed your brains on the sidewalk
Cha’a-cháak/Cha’a-cháak/Cha’a-cháak
Yuum Cháak/Dios de La Lluvia,
Kosh’ tu’n Woo Mu’uch ¿Has visto El Gran Sapo?
©Amalia Alvarez 2017
José Góngora Pat with a little toad offering to leave at his brother’s altar on his one year anniversary of death. April 7, 2017
Words from José Góngora Pat to Amalia Alvarez on her reading of this poem at City Hall on April 7, 2017:
“Yo me sentí muy orgulloso de su poema que le dedicó a Luís y que la gente escuchó ayer. Yo me sentí triste y ya de último me di cuenta que la gente estaba atenta, sintiendo la misma tristeza del Sapo Góngora y poco a poco se nos fue abriendo el corazón con la alegría del sapo Góngora.”
Translation: “I felt very proud of your poem that you dedicated to Luis, and that people heard yesterday. I felt sad, and towards the end, I realized that the people were attentive, feeling the same sadness for the Toad Góngora and little by little our hearts started opening with the joy of the Toad Góngora.”
Justice for Luis Góngora Pat 
Having read this I thought it was rather enlightening.
I appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this information together.
I once again find myself spending a lot of time both reading and leaving comments.
But so what, it was still worth it!
LikeLike