Mario Chard was born in Ogden, Utah, and raised in Morgan Valley. The son of an Argentine immigrant mother and an American father, he was educated at Weber State University (BA) and Purdue University (MFA). From 2011-2013, he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. He is the author of Land of Fire (Tupelo Press, 2018), selected by Robert Pinsky for the 2016 Dorset Prize, named a 2018 Notable Debut by Poets & Writers Magazine, and chosen as the winner of the 2019 Georgia Author of the Year Award in Poetry. His poems and essays have appeared in the The New Yorker, Poetry, Boston Review, and elsewhere, and have been honored with various awards, including the “Discovery” Poetry Prize. He currently teaches in Atlanta, Georgia, where he lives with his wife and sons.
Works
WE MAKE A THING WE MARVEL
WE MAKE A THING WE MARVEL
We make a thing we marvel
and learn to worry.
Light
through the red glass of a prophet’s robe
makes us red.
We see a horse return the hour before storm
in distress.
We distress.
The thing we make
learns to marvel light.
We think worry is a robe
we can outgrow.
In the mirror we see our bodies without robes
distressed.
It storms.
The prophet marvels at the horse
that spoke.
CABALLERO
CABALLERO
Rigoberto Salas-López, 30, was charged with transporting illegal immigrants resulting in death. Eight of the 14 people in the Chevy Suburban died after it rolled several times on U.S. 191 a few hours before dawn Monday. Salas-López, originally from Guatemala, told investigators he swerved to miss a horse. He was arrested after fleeing into the desert in the Four Corners area of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado.
—Associated Press
April 17, 2007
The passengers say no, he wasn’t swerving to miss a horse, that he was fondling a female passenger in the front seat of the vehicle.
—Sgt. Rick Eldredge
The Salt Lake Tribune
1
Say it was a horse.
That the horse watched
the three-ton van
roll until it stopped
where their bodies
stopped. That the horse
unlike a horse waited
until he stood. Say it was
the horse he followed
in the desert. Say it was
the desert, the sagebrush
that kept the horse. Say
it was the trail he left
the patrolmen followed.
That they never found
the horse. That he covered
the horse tracks in
the desert with his own.
2
The sergeant doesn’t find the wreckage first. When he asks the survivors how many cars passed in the desert three hours before morning, they tell him they remember only one, that someone moved the bodies from the road and drove away. In their language they say this road is a river nothing gathers. The sergeant asks to see their driver and one points to the desert. The rest point to the woman he reached for: a hole the body left passing through the windshield.
3
Son,
in Spanish you do not agree,
you must be in agreement,
estar de acuerdo.
Two people may agree or disagree,
like we do,
but they must also be in one
or the other.
If you mistake
cuerdo for
cuerda
you will have said rope
or cord,
though both words divide and bind
some older form of
agreement.
As a boy I saw
a model of the spinal cord,
how the nerves run down,
divide us behind.
They named it cauda equina—
horse tail—buried
cord.
4
In his dream the sergeant takes a shovel to the river to hold the river back. He is told he will find nothing, to keep nothing he finds. The sergeant stands in the river until his feet freeze, until they lose their hold, until it is the shovel itself he holds to keep from slipping under. The river is choked with debris. It is a bird’s nest, finally, that passes, convincing him. Inside he sees small branches woven, then string, then needles, clothing, then hair. He untangles the nest to braid a rope.
5
Say the three names
he gave the sergeant
were true. Say
the names of the
eight bodies pulled from
the wreckage became
the numbers they first
labeled them by. Say
the eighth is no longer
nameless. Say they still
tie ropes to the caskets
of immigrants they find
in the desert. That a rope
saves time should
someone come looking.
Say they bury the ropes
for the dead to climb
back. Say their names.
6
Son, do not mistake
cabello for
caballo,
hair for
horse,
that caballero,
though gentleman,
meant
horseman.
You’ve heard the Spanish
conquered Mexico
on their horses.
You’ve heard the conquered
could not tell
the man from horse
and ask me
How do we know
the conquered knew?
They listened. The horses
never spoke.
Is your father a caballero?
No,
I am not a horse, son.
No,
there are no horsemen.
No,
not every man is gentle.
ROUND
ROUND
State departments of transportation use military artillery to control the avalanche threat above mountain highways. Occasionally artillery ordnance does not explode upon impact: a potential risk to hikers after the snow melts.
— United States Forest Service
1
All night the sound of water
in a ditch. No dreams to speak of.
Not the cannon shells
across the canyon or their routine
sound. Snow
pulled from the mountain like a sleeve
torn from a shoulder.
We inoculate our son. In the needle,
the same virus we hope his body
will defeat.
2
In my father’s dream
it is the ditch that wakes him,
All night the sound of water
in a ditch. No dreams to speak of
voices coming from the lawn.
Outside, men stand with their arms uncrossed,
Not the cannon shells
across the canyon or their routine
men who ask him for his boots.
When he slips them from his feet
sound. Snow
pulled from the mountain
he sees water spilling from the tops,
water running from the porch
torn from a shoulder.
We inoculate our son. In the needle
and gutter, water where the ditch had been,
the mountains all made low
the same virus we hope his body
will defeat
3
I woke, waited
barefoot by my window
In my father’s dream
it is the ditch
until the cannon shook my roof again,
sent the smallest avalanche
coming from the lawn.
Outside
it had not meant to
barreling from my shingles.
his boots.
When he slips them from his feet
In the dream
I saw men standing where the ditch had been,
water spilling from the tops,
running
then only half
their bodies stranded in the snow
where the ditch had been,
the mountains all made low
4
When they said it was a boy
hiked farther than the others on the mountain,
woke, waited
barefoot by my window
stumbled on the live round
in the grass and pine needles where the shell
shook my roof again
the smallest avalanche
struck in winter,
I dreamed I also picked the metal from the ground
had not meant to
barreling
to see it better,
knew its risk by weight alone,
In the dream
I saw men standing
ran the shell back quickly
to my father
then only half
their bodies stranded in the snow
5
When they said it was a boy
hiked farther than the others on the mountain,
stumbled on the live round
in the grass and pine needles where the shell
struck in winter,
I dreamed I also picked the metal from the ground
to see it better,
knew its risk by weight alone,
ran the shell back quickly
to my father
Bibliography
- Land of Fire, Tupelo Press, 2018
Readings and Interviews
- Three Poems from Land of Fire Poets & Writers Debut Feature (2018)
- “Devil’s Gate to Devil’s Slide: Poetry and Pattern Recognition,” TEDx Atlanta, GA (2017)
- City Art Salt Lake City, UT (2014)
- Debut Poets Feature Poets & Writers Magazine
- Conversations with Contributors Adroit Journal
