Homesteaders is a poem by 2013 Texas Laureate Poet and longtime San Antonio treasure, Rosemary Catacalos.
Last night I heard the poem performed in a concert with the Youth Orchestra of San Antonio in St. Mark's Church during a performance of Ballads of the Borderland by composer Ethan Wickman, another local treasure.
They came for the water,
came to its sleeping place
here in the bed of an old sea,
the dream of the water.
They sank hand and tool into
soil where the bubble of springs
gave off hope, fresh and long,
the song of the water.
Babies and crops ripened
where they settled,
where they married their sweat
in the ancient wedding,
the blessing of the water.
They made houses of limestone
and adobe, locked together blocks
descended from shells and coral,
houses of the bones of the water,
shelter of the water.
And they swallowed the life
of the lime in the water,
sucked its mineral up
into their own bones
which grew strong as the water,
the gift of the water.
All along the counties they lay,
mouth to mouth with the water,
fattened in the smile of the water,
the light of the water,
water flushed pure through the
spine and ribs of the birth of life,
the old ocean,
the stone,
the home of the water.
Rosemary Catacalos—from Again For the First Time, 1984 and 2013, Wings Press.
After reading or hearing this poem, it may be jarring, but also interesting and possibly insightful to watch this brief video of the borderlands.
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