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Janero A musically notated missal was printed in Mexico in 1556 A century before Europeans and Africans arrived in North America with regularity And the first American performance of an opera was in Lima in 1701, another was performed in Mexico City in 1710 In colonial Peru, the quena flute evoked such soulful Inca identity that the Church tried to prohibit it Carlos Chávez went to these sources Percussion, vertical and transverse winds The ancient music of the Americas Heitor Villa-Lobos showed up in Paris in his thirties, self-taught and saying that he hadn’t come to study but to show them what he’d already done La haberańa, Sobre las olas, el areito, marimbulla, moundongue, meringo, merengo Domingo Santa Cruz Wilson’s Cantata de los ríos de Chile Ginestera, Claudio Arrau Catira, modinha, toadas, macumba, congada, choro, samba With Chávez in Mexico, Manuel Maria Ponce, Julián Carillo and Silvestre Revueltas Columbus Day in North America is celebrated all over Latin America as el Día de la raza A glib contemporary Brazilian vocal-visual piece called Bebe Coca-Cola transposes vowels and syllables until the piece’s final phrase, "cloaca" A female northern harrier in bright winter sun, coursing a field forty yards off Ginkgos are the only species remaining of a widespread genus of prehistoric trees Ginkgo leaves may fall while still yellow and green, thick on the ground in a textured jasmine carpet, fluted lower edges upturned A big symmetrical ginkgo was centered on a terrace below a bunker overlooking the Paju Valley and the road that led to Munsan, the DMZ and the North Two Koreas existed south of the North immediately upon the Ceasefire It was as though everything military coalesced within that forward zone And everything behind, from Seoul on south reverted to rice paddy quiet village peace Six decades of soldiers in the hills near the DMZ Troopers with M-1s at trail arms, and in the North with Simonov SKSs and M1944 carbines running, weather, cold From loose column route march to dive behind the berms of paddy banks Both sides of the roads and tracks Double-time with M-1s at high port arms Over nine pounds without bayonet, they were like carrying lumber at sling arms Forearm and elbow raise from cover to thumb-punch the eight-round clips into the breech Cosmoline grit, heavy, slamming kick and cordite stink Double-timing on point on squad maneuvers in the bare snow hills in the cold to drop behind the next paddy dike Asses and elbows Like hogs on ice, wearing galoshes-treaded thermal boots in deep winter Heavy, everything heavy, the parkas and the helmets, impractical and heavy The BARs and M-1s, and packing ammo or a machine gun or its tripod forward Grenades hung on pack harnesses chest straps, sheathed bayonet, bandage packs, rolled field jacket, two or three aluminum canteens with covers, OD gauze bandoleers of M-1 clips hung across your shoulders Gut cramps, out of a filthy sleeping bag and dizzy stumbling up out of the bunker into the cold for the latrine, trembling, feverish with the runs Shit-seamed underwear, long johns stiff at the fly with urine stink Socks with holes Sucking a stinking cavity in a lower molar Unwashed hair because there were almost no showers that winter, scurf, smegma, dirty nails, filthy feet Pink eye, clap, crabs, boils, jock itch, sore throats, crotch cheese, head lice Boredom Fear sometimes US Army quartermaster sergeants siphoning off the fresh food to rear echelon units and the black market, and selling off the new-issue socks and fresh sleeping bag liners allotted for line outfits A mutiny against a Nietzschean CO of an AA battery the winter following the Ceasefire An MP company road patrol went berserk in the mud before that spring, shot up a Korean village killing at least ten civilians That was silenced, hushed up too, buried in the manner of the AA battery mutiny In the mud A mud-war state of mind, everybody blaming their misery on everybody else But on clear days from those ridges you could see forever, all the way down the Imjin River and out to the afternoon sun’s fine dancing glittering off the Yellow Sea horizon Continuity in perspective, the most vivid dimension Those Korean faces in America behind produce stands, dry-cleaners, behind sushi bars, in Korean restaurants, computer stores The greeting, the nods, identification of outfits and village names, bemusement from the young, and then most often earnest thanks Talk of specific intersections, particular hills and ravines, the manner of Korean rural life, the typhoon rains, the moonlight over flooded paddies, the small local things On both sides of the DMZ, still, right now men are running in the hills with their Kalasnikovs and M-16s at port arms
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