An Unsung Ode to Selena Quintanilla-Perez, 1971-1995

(An Unsung Ode to Selena Quintanilla-Perez, 1971-1995  – Copyright© 2009 – cyberaxis.wordpress.com)

Meditación

I have pondered the death of  Selena in the listless hours between remembrance and oblivion and come to the inescapable  conclusion that Selena will live forever because she represented something in all of us that did not die in the weening  hours of March 31st, 1995.

Beyond skepticism, beyond cynicism,
Selena was the incarnation of goodness
That lives,  moves and has its  being amongst men;
The every-woman with the heart of gold
Who refused to see evil until the very end.

Selena Quintanilla-Perez, 15 Years Later – Still “Una Mujer Del Pueblo”: “She never forgot she was Chicana. She never forgot she was Tejana,” ( 15th anniversary celebrant, March 31, 2010)

She will live forever because she represented
the joy of youth  that gives without pretense:

“When she laughed,
she laughed harder
Than anyone I knew.
And when she cried
She cried harder
Than anyone I knew.”
(Christopher Perez)
The one she called
“El amor de mi vida”
To her sister’s “Me mejor amiga,”
Why do words fail?

Por siempre Selena

Throughout her life she sought happiness
And ways to spread it, and reveled in both.
It was never about the music, but life
Unencumbered by the trappings of  fame and fortune.
Selena will always be the plucky little girl  in “Little House on the Prairie,” 
Trippin’ and fallin’  and pickin’ herself up,
Running,  always running towards love.  (Selah)

But WERE there  moments  of shadow and doubt,
Quiet interludes of fear and trepidation
Twixt the montage of a woman-child having a  ball.

Her favorite flower was white.

“Oftentimes the pure white rose
was depicted as being stained by blood,
or made to blush from a kiss.”
(The  History and Meaning of
White Roses, Samantha Green)

Was Selena, beyond the smiles,  in touch with the pall of her impending doom?

Princesa Azteca

Framed by silk  and a singular curl, here she lies,
As beautifully regal in death as she was in life,
Up on this paneled dais in surreal state;
Intimations of Aztec royalty unsung
The same that came and left us in the  Spring.

Beyond wishing, her soul rests
Within and without like a garden:
Vital,
Verdant
And ethereal;
The embodiment of that which remains
Long after time and circumstance
Has swept away the engrams of sorrow and regret,
For in the larger scheme of things
This too shall pass. (Selah)

The now iconic image of Selena taken by Mr. George Gongora of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times on November 14, 1994, a scant 4 ½ months before Selena was killed. The bouquet of flowers had just been given to her following an educational presentation at the Cunningham Middle School in Corpus Christi, TX.

Pass when Selena is born again with  a bouquet and a smile that will now remain forever young.

“Smart (lass*), to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.”

(A.E. Housman, To An Athlete Dying Young)

(*’Lass’ substituted for ‘lad’ in original)

Journey to Corpus – Like  “Journey to Addis“

Through rococco bursts of color and artifact
We  squeaked through the eye of the needle and left our hearts in Corpus Christi,
This crusted city by the Nueces, atop the  Rio Grande; our destination
By the bay,
By “Mirador de la Flor “
The “Overlook of the Flower“
‘Neath the salt showers.

Here she stands
in muted tones of bronze
and a storied laurel.

Selena Quintanilla, incandesced by night lights waxing gold at Mirador De La Flor, “The Overlook of the Flower, ‘Neath the salt showers.” Corpus Christi, TX  – arguably the most sentient depiction of Selena’s statue.

Observación: The ordinariness of this memento belies the broadside; the shiver that one feels upon first approach.  Something happened here too  – something which moved heaven and earth beneath this ornamented promenade; the voice the City of Corpus heard above the din “of the madding crowd.” Abraham and Marcella’s little girl now belongs to the people. The greened bronze belies the moment, but we are here to bear witness:

For here in this cloistered cove by The Bay
We are about to beat an ancient drum,
To an athlete who died  young.

Selena para las edades.

Lake Jackson,
Corpus Christi
Houston Astro.

We go back but return to celebrate the living,
Because that is what Selena did … with her song.

copyright© 2011 cyberaxis.wordpress.com

México Remembers Selena

Here in this album clip, 10 years after the death of Selena, 15 Mexican stars revisit the scene of collective heartbreak with a musical elegy that proves once again that nothing outside of the human voice can out-wail  the horn and the accordion when it comes to expressing grief. The best track of this comp is this rousing rendition of “No Me Queda Mas” by Palomo. The band pulls off the feat by slowing everything down to a funereal but stately beat.  This stylistic sleight of hand transforms the song,  once about unrequited teen love,  into an anthem of universal longing …. a paean to loss untrammeled by flights of romance.

copyright© 2009 cyberaxis.wordpress.com

Appendix:

And The Best Die Young: The short life and death of Selena Quintanilla-Perez (Cyberaxis)

To An Athlete Dying Young (A.E. Housman, 1859)

Visitors mark anniversary of Selena’s death (Doreen  C.  Bowens – Corpus Christi Caller Times, April 1, 1999)

“All the wonders you seek are within yourself.” (Sir Thomas Browne)

“For in him we live and move and have our being.” (St. Paul)

I Wanna Know What Love Is (Lucky Dube)

And the best die young: The short life and death of Selena Quintanilla-Perez

(And the best die young: The short life and death of Selena Quintanilla-Perez -  Copyright© 2009 – cyberaxis.wordpress.com)

March remains the cruelest of all months;  and the 31st,  the day time stood still  in a space so surreal it deserves its own  time-line.

Flashback reminiscent of November 22, 1963:  It’s  a little after 1.05pm and the news that would rock Corpus Christi and the world begins to fan out of  Memorial Medical Center (now the Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi – Memorial):  Selena Quintanilla-Perez, the celebrated  Queen of Tejano has just died after being shot by  the former president of her fan club.  Incongruity: Selena the most loving person in the world had just died following the most hate-filled encounter. The collective mind could not wrap itself around this. It still cannot.

Shooting Star … One to the Universe: The late Selena Quintanilla-Perez April 16, 1971 – March 31, 1995. The symbolism in this pic is stunning “Como La Flor.” She has through fate and circumstance, become the symbol of our joy and pain clarified and bottled like an essence; stunningly potent in its essences and guises. (Copyright: George Gongora, Corpus Christi Caller Times)

And so it has been with this tragedy, that the majority of us  have been  condemned to start the story of Selena at the end of it with a casket,  instead of  the irrepressible little girl who would transfix the world with her song.