WEBVTT

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You know, I'm glad
you got that joke.

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So if I told that
joke in Massachusetts,

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no one will know what the
hell I was talking about.

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There are other
things people don't

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understand in New England.

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For example, people in New
England have never heard

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of Juan de Oñate.

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Ah, yes.

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People nowadays are up in arms
about Confederate statues.

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Confederate statues being
taken down, neo-Nazi marches

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to defend Confederate
statues, but let's

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not forget there are other
statues in this country too.

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Statues of conquistadors, that
not only are still up, but keep

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increasing in number.

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I went and visited the
novelist John Nichols in Taos

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some years ago.

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And he said, you've
got to see this.

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You got to see this.

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So we pulled off in a
town called Alcalde,

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where we went to see the
statue of this conquistador,

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named Juan de Oñate.

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And amazingly, someone,
person or persons unknown,

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had taken a chainsaw and
cut off his right foot!

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He said, look,
isn't this amazing?

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I said, yeah.

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And then maybe a
year or two later,

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I got a ride to the
airport in El Paso,

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from a Chicano scholar
named Arturo Madrid,

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and Arturo brought
me to the airport.

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He said, wait, before you get on
the plane you got to see this.

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And he showed me another
statue of Juan de Oñate,

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bigger than the last one.

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I said, what, they're
making more of them?

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And they're larger?

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Because this man was
not just a discoverer,

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the so-called discoverer
of New Mexico.

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He was a conquistador, which
is to say he was a killer.

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And there was a reason
why someone sliced off

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his right foot in the dark.

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So this is the poem that I
call "A Tale Of Two Statues,"

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also known as "The Right
Foot of Juan de Oñate,"

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for John Nichols
and Arturo Madrid.

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On the road to Taos,
in the town of Alcalde,

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the bronze statue of Juan
de Oñate, the conquistador,

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kept vigil from his horse.

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Late one night, a chainsaw
sliced off his right foot,

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stuttering to the bowl of
his ankle as Oñate's spirit

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scratched and howled, like a dog
trapped within the bronze body.

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Four centuries ago, after
his cannon fire burst to burn

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hundreds of bodies and blackened
the adobe walls the Acoma

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Pueblo, Oñate wheeled on
his startled horse and spoke

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the decree.

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All Acoma males
above the age of 25

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would be punished by
amputation of the right foot.

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Spanish knives sawed
through ankles,

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Spanish hands tossed
feet into piles like fish

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at the marketplace.

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There was prayer, and wailing in
a language Oñate did not speak.

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Now, at the airport at El Paso,
across the river from Juarez,

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another bronze statue of
Oñate rises on a horse frozen

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in fury.

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The city fathers smash champagne
bottles across the horse's legs

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to christen the statue and
Oñate's spirit remembers

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the chainsaw carving
the ball of his ankle.

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The Acoma Pueblo still stands.

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Thousands of brown feet walk
across the border, the desert

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of Chihuahua, the shallow
places of the Rio Grande

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that bridges from
Juarez to El Paso.

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Oñate keeps watch high on
horseback above the Rio Grande,

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the law of the conquistador
rolled in his hand.

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Helpless as a man with
an amputated foot spirit

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scratching and howling like
a dog within the bronze body.

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