Grandfather’s Father, by Leroy V. Quintana

Grandfather’s father is said to have drowned

on his rancho in Conda’o de Union,

perhaps thrown from his horse, perhaps murder

made to look like drowning.

I am told the runoffs from the winter snows

caused considerable flooding back home this year.

But here, near the ocean, the fury of water

crashing down the arroyos is not difficult to fathom.

Every year I remember fewer names, faces,

less and less of our peculiar Spanish.

A good measure of time, distance.

Questions are all I have of home.

How is it a man could drown in a small ojo

in that vast ocean of llano in northeastern New Mexico?

Why is it the farther from home, the more

unfathomable why it’s more and more difficult to return?

From “My Hair Turning Gray Among Strangers” by Leroy V. Quintana (Bilingual Press: $9; 88 pp.). Copyright 1996 Reprinted with permission.