Aspen Matis by Ted Guevara

Throw that cane away; let it bounce and belittle
itself among the down rocks. And please don’t look

back to cradle it like Moses’ staff, its blackness unworthy
of glisten, no standout among preset violets.

Yes, your onward sway can cut through fresh swirls,
your knees mincing the good faith. Your youth needs

not rewind the loud clocks you may have placed
on high shelves. You look up and see only

incomplete circle on each one. If they provide
wholesome ticks, you would wish

they’re only clearest, the smoothest of water
over the next bend of pine trees. Resolved, they

are already lunged through, smashed by your
seemingly frail boots. This is what I know of you.

The stars lent faint on my sight as I try to sort
the needles and the cones. I look up

and all the luster comes from your face; my heaves
of air are not from strides the merciless

backwall may have muraled in my mind. Clusters of
violet stay motionless. Blackened canes are

just that. We breathe to see and hunger to feel
what is deeper in the soil than us. Blind me, I

just see a sprig of green from that granite; and
a growth upward webbing cracks for the air of you.

As for the subject of the poem–and in respect to the one named and so many like her–when rape occurs in a college campus, the reputation of the school is involved. The victim likely becomes the underdog. Her fight becomes steep in attaining justice, dignity or to where she was before the rape, which itself is near impossibility.

TED BERNAL GUEVARA resides at Speedway, Indiana, where he is a freelance writer. He is the author of the James Dean conceptual novel, DAYS OF SLINT. His first novel, A CIRCLE WITH TWO CORNERS, has won praises from Midwest reviews, including one from Fort Wayne’s The Sentinel. The crime-romance novel, TRUE FEEL, came out in May 2013 and revamped in its Second Edition this year. Another James Dean novel (LIPS OF A MASTODON) came out in September, 2015.

Mr. Guevara has also penned two books of poetry called FILMS and more recently, BIRDS ON ELEPHANT, published by Anaphora Literary Press, 2015.