Jimmy Santiago Baca

(2 January 1952 / Santa Fe, New Mexico)

poet Jimmy Santiago Baca
#85 on top 500 poets

Count-Time - Poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Everybody to sleep the guard symbolizes
on his late night tour of the tombs.
When he leaves, after counting still bodies
wrapped in white sheets, when he goes,

the bodies slowly move, in solitary ritual,
counting lost days, mounting memories,
numbering like sand grains
the winds drag over high mountains
to their lonely deaths; like elephants
they go bury themselves
under dreamlike waterfalls,
in the silence.


Comments about Count-Time by Jimmy Santiago Baca

  • Fabrizio Frosini (11/27/2015 10:15:00 AM)


    '' the bodies slowly move, in solitary ritual,
    counting lost days, mounting memories, ''

    though not really original, it is a nice poetic image..     (Report) Reply

    3 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
  • (1/15/2010 6:13:00 PM)


    Count time- a memory both distant yet always with me. Elephants traveling to bury themselves is a sad but also beautiful depiction of life. Thank you for the added colors to life. (Report) Reply

    1 person liked.
    		0 person did not like.
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Read poems about / on: lonely, silence, sleep, lost, night, time, wind, memory



Poem Submitted: Friday, January 3, 2003

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