return again and again to the relationship of
people and land, particularly toward the end of
the volume.
‘‘Miss Doc at Eighty,’’ Mora speaks in the
persona of an octogenarian who was an herbalist
or curandera. Her morning ritual of working in the
garden reminds her of, and continues to connect
her with, the restorative, healing qualities of plant
life: ‘‘... sharp smell / of plants on my fingertips /
where the facts once were / so my patients said’’
(48). Later, in ‘‘Secrets,’’ Mora elaborates on the
importance for cultural conservation of healers
such as Miss Doc. In the first two stanzas of
‘‘Secrets’’ she describes ‘‘Felipe, the Tarahumara,
guiding / my great grandfather.’’ And in the third
stanza Mora expresses her desire ‘‘for such a guide,
a woman, / teaching me the art of bending / close
to the land, / silent, listening, feeling the path’’ (86).
In ‘‘Mi Tierra,’’ the speaker addresses the land
directly, indicating that MiTierra in its generative
essence is also Mi Madre. Through going barefoot
the speaker can feel the earth move: ‘‘through me,
but in / me, in me’’ (79). The speaker is part of an
entity and part of a system, with the relationship
depicted as participatory and processive.
While ‘‘Mi Tierra’’ emphasizes an individual
woman-earth relationship, ‘‘Desert Women’’
extends that relationship to a community. Here
the women become like the desert, because they
are a part of it, knowledgeable ‘‘about survival’’ in
extremes, with ‘‘deep roots... to hide pain and
loss by silence.’’ These lines remind the reader of
Lesson 1 inChantsabout learning the silent lis-
tening strength of the desert. The conclusion of
‘‘Desert Women,’’ however, reminds the readers
of Lesson 2. In that poem the speaker accepted
the desert’s challenge to ‘‘dance,’’ while in ‘‘Desert
Women’’ she exclaims: ‘‘Don’t be deceived. When
we bloom, we stun’’ (80). In ‘‘Success,’’ the final
poem ofBorders, the speaker, as both poet and
cultural activist, wishes ‘‘To be of use / like hier-
babuena’’ (88), healer from the desert. But Mora
knows that through the writing of this poem, as
with all of her others, she is already of use to those
who share her heritage and to those who seek to
understand and respect another’s heritage. Poetry
serves as both a healing agent and a repository of
the knowledge necessary to know how to ‘‘steep
leaves patiently’’ (88). InNepantla,Mora defines
the sense of responsibility behind her writing:
I write because I believe that Mexican Ameri-
cans need to take their rightful place in U.S.
literature. We need to be published and to be
studied in schools and colleges so that the sto-ries and ideas of our people won’t quietly dis-
appear.... [D]eep inside I always wish I wrote
better, that I could bring more honor and
attention to those like the abuelitas, grand-
mothers, I write about. (139)
Communionis filled with the stories of such
people and ideas that must be preserved, and
repeatedly these are tied to the land. ‘‘Gentle Com-
munion’’ opens the first section, ‘‘Old Bones,’’ with
a tribute to ‘‘Mamande,’’ who the speaker says
‘‘came with me from the desert’’ (11). As a symbol
of resistance to assimilation, she remains, even
though ‘‘long-dead,’’ a source of reassurance and
comfort. This comfort is imaged as peeled grapes,
and the pleasure of their taste depends upon the
same patience required to steep leaves for tea. The
desert that opens the poem is linked with a fruit,
and Mamande is linked with both, indicating the
nourishment to be derived from a ‘‘natured cul-
ture,’’ one generated and maintained in the place
from which it arose. The heritage Mamande rep-
resents is one not so much built as grown and
nurtured through generations, a heritage that sur-
vives and may flourish despite changes, difficul-
ties, and the barriers of languages.
Similarly, the three poems, ‘‘Divisadero Street,
San Francisco,’’‘‘Desert Pilgrimage,’’ and ‘‘Don
Jaime,’’ link the preservation of traditional knowl-
edge embodied in the stories and lives of abuelas
and abuelos with maintaining their rootedness in
the land. The woman of ‘‘Divisadero Street’’ lives
in the city but reminds the speaker that we are
‘‘Lost without dirt,’’ without connection to the
soil that is the source of the wisdom and healing
power handed down from one curandera to
another. This woman seems very much a younger
version of Miss Doc found inBorders.Moranotes
that her gardening affects the people around her.
As the flowers reflect the sunshine, ‘‘... light daz-
zles / until we too shimmer’’ (17). In the final stanza
Mora equates growing these urban flowers with
cultivating the next generation.
‘‘Desert Pilgrimage’’ reinforces the genera-
tional importance of curanderas, as the first per-
son narrator recounts all of the arts she practices
that have been learned from a woman like the one
on Divisadero Street. Such a woman’s voice
remains with her, guiding her in the way that
she would want to be guided, as expressed in
‘‘Secrets’’ inBorders. The power of herbal healing
is also celebrated in ‘‘Don Jaime,’’ which immedi-
ately follows ‘‘Desert Pilgrimage.’’ Here, a male is
depicted as curandero, perhaps like ‘‘Felipe, the
Tarahumara.’’ Mora here does not nostalgicallyUncoiling