photoFor today’s Push-up + Poetry challenge, you’ll be jumping over an obstacle of your choice. It can be low to the ground (broomstick/jo/PVC pipe/barbell) or higher (a barbell with bumper plates, a bench, a box) for burpee jump-overs. My favorite is a fearless friend lying on the ground.

To do the burpee jump-over, face the obstacle, do a burpee, stand up and jump over the obstacle, turn around, do a burpee, jump back over to your original side. That’s one.

2 burpee jump-overs
10 squats
15 mountain climbers each leg

Drive through each round as fast as possible – the smoother your movements, the faster you’ll be. Following the theme from yesterday, do them at the top of every hour. You’re shooting for 10 rounds total. If you’ve not done 10 by the end of the day, do the remainder straight through, fast and smooth.

When obstacles, barriers and borders are put into place by the powers that be to keep you down and out, prepare to jump.  Our poem today is from Gloria Anzaldúa’s astounding Borderlands/La Frontera:

To live in the borderlands means you
are neither hispana india negra española
ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed
caught in the crossfire between camps while carrying all five races on your back
not knowing which side to turn to, run from;

To live in the Borderlands means knowing
that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years,
is no longer speaking to you,
that mexicanas call you rajetas,
that denying the Anglo inside you
is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;

Cuando vives en la frontera
people walk through you, wind steals your voice,
you’re a burra, buey, scapegoat
forerunner of a new race,
half and half–both woman and man, neither–
a new gender;

To live in the Borderlands means to
put chile in the borscht
eat whole wheat tortillas,
speak Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent;
be stopped by la migra at the border check points;

Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to
resist the gold elixer beckoning from the bottle,
the pull of the gun barrel,
the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;

In the Borderlands
you are the battleground
where enemies are kin to each other;
you are at home, a stranger,
the border disputes have been settled
the volley of shots have shattered the truce
you are wounded, lost in action
dead, fighting back;

To live in the Borderlands means
the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off
your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart
pound you pinch you roll you out
smelling like white bread but dead;

To survive in the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras
be a crossroads.