When I read this morning that Donald Trump’s “pep rally” tonight in Mobile, Alabama is being moved to the 43,000-seat Ladd-Peebles because 35,000 tickets to the event have been distributed, this poem by H. R. Hays came to mind. It first appeared in 1969, I believe, in George Hitchcock’s Kayak magazine.
THE OLD WOMAN
Who sits in her yard
Every day
Beside a flag
Tied to a stick
Is trying to
Nail down America.
She is afraid
It will take off
From under her feet,
Piloted by long-haired
Chinese astronauts.
Hays is perhaps most remembered as the editor of 12 Spanish American Poets, originally published by Yale University Press in 1944, then reissued in 1972 by Beacon Press. The Beacon Press edition is one I return to a couple of times a year, not for the superstars in it–Borges, Huidobro, Neruda, Vallejo–but for the lesser known poets who in my opinion spoke with similar authenticity and force, among them Ramón López Velarde, Luis Carlos López, Jorge Carrera Andrade, and José Gorostiza. I should add that Hays also gave me my first experience of Brecht‘s poetry, and that of Juan Ramón Jiménez.
But after all is said and done, it’s his old flag-bound woman with her fear of Asian hippies that sticks in my mind. If she’s still alive, she’ll surely be at Trump’s rally tonight….
Great poem and wonderful tribute to H.R. Hays. Also, apt poem for what is going on with Trump and his fans.
Oh, I love that poem.
Well, now you know….
No more than five years ago, returning from a trip to Taos, we stopped at a cute little diner in Walsenburg and overheard an elderly conversation about how “those people” were invading by way of spaceships. I so wanted to ask who “those people” were.