Other Seasons. Harold J. Recinos

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СКАЧАТЬ rooftops daring us to sleep and

      stroking park vagrant’s hair with a gentle

      breeze. I walked by a man playing blue

      melodies on a worn violin to the banks

      where the Hudson River spreads to enjoy her

      flashy current rushing swiftly, there I imagined

      lives past, present and still to come to share in

      this world. I sat to catch my breath looking across

      the brown waters and allowed the coming

      night to drop peace on me like Bronx Angels’

      sing.

      [Lost Key]

      I was walking on a quiet day thinking

      of a lost key listening to Mourning Doves

      announce the rising light with song. I could

      smell a faint touch of perfume on the lady

      with long black hair in a white dress walking

      in front of me waking me up. I decided to

      stroll long enough to remember the whereabouts

      of the key to the apartment with heckling grey

      radiators in the building none of the neighbors

      liked. I walked by St. John’s Chrysostom Church

      wondering what not keeping the Sabbath had to

      do with this lost key and decided to wander in to

      light a few candles. I sat in the third pew for a few

      moments listening to a priest who happened to sing,

      hoping my crowded head would remember this of all

      things. I wanted to grow old with that key, have it

      unlock my Eden whenever needed for a taste of peace,

      and let it store sweet memories in rooms I alone would

      enter. no matter how hard I thought the key did

      not come back to me, I cried for ancient tongues

      to speak the secret of lost objects, and kept walking

      around like a child in search of Jerusalem in the Bronx

      for the tiny little opener with a red dot on it that

      would open my mother’s apartment door—home

      to me. I still foolishly yearn to find it in a sidewalk

      crack, beneath an old cushion at church, on an altar

      in a grocery store with plastic Saints, or in the pocket

      of the last domino player on the block who will say

      I found it!

      [Psalm 137]

      by the rivers along the border, we

      sat and wept with memories of the

      villages that taught us to believe

      in happiness. there under the cashew

      trees, we frolicked in the evening glow

      with music played on strings the soldiers

      one day would toss in an impetuous stream

      they watched turn red with our blood. how

      can we sing on the other side of this river

      in the North? where is our highest joy,

      the holy ground, the Lord that will repay

      them for our weaknesses and deaths? when

      will our stammering tongues sing again to

      send away those who stomp us to the ground

      in this foreign place? what peace will come to

      us, now? what justice will overtake the owners

      of this world and their fallen souls? who will

      remember us like cherished flowers to be held?

      cursing the violence of war, on this river bank,

      vengeance is not our dream, life is the truest

      thing we bid to put an end to the threats hanging

      above our heads and dropping us without tears

      into fresh foreign earth.

      [The Mural]

      ablaze, the candles burned

      beside the wall of Big Pun

      with flowers around them,

      the kids stood in front of the

      mural with bowed heads glad

      to praise the one who sang against

      the jeering eyes uptown, the disapproving

      priests, and an angry God who they

      say forgets to save. the mother big

      with another child, holding a little girl’s

      hand, stared at the wall like someone

      seeing into a mirror waiting for truth to

      ripen in her eyes. when her lips began

      moving the gathered listened to her

      say Mr. Rios we have passion left to

      love the block, you remain sweet for

      for us and the children like to stop in

      front of this wall to cobble hope and

      rap. in the silence of the afternoon,

      before the crowd dispersed, СКАЧАТЬ