My initial reaction to Tracy K. Smith’s “Seventy Times Seven” was one of awe. To begin at the beginning, the title cannot help but remind one of Matthew 18:22. While Smith incorporates religious figures, including San Nicolas, the poem is nothing short of magical in its exploration of culture, spiritual awakening, and human emotions. In a lecture, Smith discussed the interconnections between faith and poetry. She said, “Like the language of spiritual awakening, poems seek to be living words—vehicles for transmitting a sense of the strange and the powerful from speaker to reader” (Smith, 2018). Thus poetry is a vessel that carries with it the energy and intentions set by the author.
“Seventy Times Seven” begins with a description of son de artesa legend Catalina Bruno. Smith writes, “Something tugs at the scrim of daylight / And you see things as they are. Air ajar, / World a coin in spin. It will fall” (13-15). She paints a portrait of Catalina, known by the endearing diminutive Cata throughout the rest of the poem. Son de artesa was kept alive by Catalina, and, like faith, was passed down generation after generation. Sonically and rhythmically, Smith captures the essence of the cultural amalgamation of son de artesa and offers readers a peek into a world of resiliency and intergenerational connectedness. Her lines are dizzying and offer so much beauty, just as if the reader were being invited to partake in son de artesa. She writes, “Saint Nicolas / Like a dancer in second position, / Happy for the pretty morenitas / Whose bare feet he would anoint / With beads from his own pious brow / Could he but bend” (43-48). As deferential as she is to Cata, without missing a beat, Smith doesn’t shy away from having fun. She reminds the reader that poetry, like faith and son de artesa, carries the weight of our experiences and emotions.
Seventy Times Seven
Tracy K. Smith
For Catalina Bruno, San Nicolas, Guerrero, Mexico
1.
You look out through blue-blind eyes
And grab a shadow with your gaze: pigs.
Nosing the bird bones you've picked dry.
What you've eaten already, twice,
Making music of it—fingers fastidious in flesh.
Little wing of remembering.
They can have it, you think, not
Bothering to form the words in your mind.
No time. No: time is the only thing.
No thing. You're older than a crow,
And when you lie down in your little room,
Crooning to yourself, voice adrift,
Something tugs at the scrim of daylight
And you see things as they are. Air ajar,
World a coin in spin. It will fall.
2.
Talk to hear what you want to hear.
The one about the devil dancing into town,
The children who followed—you were one—
Girl with a gauze waist and the good sense
To use it. What did he teach you that day?
The devil was a man, you say. Nothing
Beast about him. Nothing but his feet—
One like a rooster, the other a bull.
But by then we were already dancing,
Weren't we?
3.
But Cata, you're hungry. Dying of it,
Body laid bare by it, corseted
Into itself, bent. Brittle engine
That keeps going, too tired to stop.
And Cata, the pillow of your belly—
If I lay my head there, you'll disappear.
When you are quiet, miniscule birds
Sigh out from the cage of your chest.
You break an egg into a plastic cup.
Alchemy of necessity.
Little drop of plenty.
And beat and beat it.
4.
The body of Saint Nicolas is heavy.
Because it does not want to be lifted,
Does not want to tip forward again
And fall onto the battered temple
That has already been blessed
By clumsy thieves. Saint Nicolas
Like a dancer in second position,
Happy for the pretty morenitas
Whose bare feet he would anoint
With beads from his own pious brow
Could he but bend.
5.
How many times must you forgive
Your daughter her beauty. How many
Times must she fill your fist with dirty bills
And bags of lemons. You wanted
To watch her dance the artesa, hips
Flickering like shattered glass. To lean back
Into your age and begin to forget.
How many times must you believe her
When she promises to return. How many
Days let drop, quartered by an X
To prove you've lived them.
