Editor’s note: On Saturday, April 20, the Mexican-born documentary filmmaker Lourdes Portillo passed away at her home in San Francisco at the age of 80. Her coproduced 1985 film, Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, about an Argentinean women’s movement around disappeared sons and daughters, was nominated for an Oscar and received numerous international awards. The Library of Congress selected The Devil Never Sleeps, in which Portillo investigates the sudden death of her uncle in Mexico, for preservation in the National Film Registry. Her other documentaries include Señorita Extraviada (Missing young woman) and Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena. Her good friend, poet and novelist Sandra Cisneros, told us after Portillo’s passing, “I admired Lourdes because she was always skeptical, always questioning, whereas I am a complete innocent. She was the greatest storyteller and story listener; she drilled her eyes into you like twin cameras.” The following is a poem Cisneros wrote after Portillo’s death.
Father Dante sings today a song of joy.
All San Juan de Dios can hear him.
He sings and the jacaranda blooms blessed.
Even my organ cacti raise themselves upright.
Today is Sunday.
Yesterday my Luli left the land.
She was not mine to say “my.”
But I claim “my” all the same.
She shared her joy like Father Dante.
Her laughter expanding ours.
But when enraged, she
roiled like the Chihuahua heat
in a shroud of galloping dust,
a rain of careless curses
like Pancho Villa’s bullets.
Am relieved she didn’t aim much at me.
Mostly we laughed.
Even when we knew to count the days her last.
That final visit to San Francisco,
we sang “Farolito.”
Told stories of stories.
The trip to seek
Santa Teresita’s grave in Arizona.
Luli behind the wheel because
I’m no good at driving.
How on that ride to Clifton,
talking stories,
ascending the Arizona mountains,
talking till we hit a sudden forest of smoke.
We thought “fire!” at first, alarmed.
And a fire of fear reared
Its knotted head inside us.
Till we realized:
We are in the clouds!
Then we laughed and laughed.
Expelled the susto from our lungs.
The miles to Clifton revived with laughter.
Just as I am now.
Today.
All these miles
on the odometer
later.
Me from this side
of the gauzy divide.
Luli laughing
from hers.
Casa Coatlicue, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Copyright © 2024 by Sandra Cisneros. By permission of Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists. All rights reserved.
Sandra Cisneros is internationally acclaimed for her poetry and fiction. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Literary Award and the American Book Award, and of fellowships.
