El Espejismo del Conquistador Perdido

Jesse Doiron

July 22, 2021

The Mirage of the Lost Conquistador

Coronado, great armored conqueror,                                       

God damn your bronze-and-leather-covered hide.                  

You stole me from my home, in Badajoz,                               

and lost me here in Tejas – now forgot.                                  

Where are the seven cities and the gold?                                

The wealth beyond all earthly wealth – in hell?                      

The demon takes the damned. The fool gives up 

his soul. There is no gold, no gold at all.                                 

Such laden aspirations laid to waste      

in Tejas. Coronado, where are you?                                        

I do not know the day today.  Last night,                                

Hernando died. My breastplate’s gone, my lance,                  

my helmet, steed, and men, food, water, way                         

and hope. The sun has taken all. All. All.                                

I can not one league more walk on. Not one.                          

I cannot sweat. I cannot cry. My God,                                    

it seems as if I only live to die!                                                

Where are you now? Where now my God am I?                    

The gila monster’s tongue drips slowly wet.                           

The quick, coyote-calling wind howls dry.                             

Poor Pascualillo, just a boy. He died.                                     

Coronado! Coronado! Damn you,                                           

Coronado. God damn you and your lies.                                 

Because of you, I am alone, am damned.                                

To die alone. I—all alone. And damned.                                

I see a gilded place afar and bright,                                         

rise upon a thinning white-hot layer,                                       

widen white, high above the golding sand.                                         

Pascual! I see him! Standing there, smiling.                            

A boy at the city-gate, just a boy,                                            

unsheathes a shining, steely-shining blade –                           

the bright, hot blade of Mammon’s heavy sword.                   

He strikes it hard against the air on which                              

the city skies yet higher. Then gold-hot                                  

wind sweeps all intended wealth and rich, rich           

jewels, all vaulted graven images and                         

coins of every kind, from every window,                                

every door, every lock-hole opening –                                    

everywhere, into the white, hot air. Where?                            

Damn you, Coronado – conquistador.   

Jesse Doiron is a native Texan. He was born in the Lowlands of the Upper Gulf Coast and almost died in the Badlands of the Panhandle. After traveling the world for more than a dozen years, he came home.