Breathing Space. Harold J. Recinos

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СКАЧАТЬ followed a yellow brick road

      across two borders without the sight

      of day, waded across forbidden currents

      in an ancient river while vultures circled

      overhead, whispered on the long walk to

      a poor Crucified King, and prayed for a

      thousand miracles to hurry down from

      heaven to deliver them to their Emerald

      City. they slept in the desert like tossed

      out rags, scribbled dreams in the soil of

      the North, evaded the militia men with

      a hunger for blood, and questioned the

      land of freedom for dark skin. they

      settled in cities hiding amid crowds,

      raised children to speak ingles without

      Spanish drawls, boys grew up to serve in

      foreign wars, girls imagined a white marriage

      would keep them from a wooden cross, and

      elders prayed for an end to building the nation

      with the price of dark blood. they keep coming

      to El Norte, where nothing is secure, with pockets

      full of need, strangers with dreams, yearning for

      a place to call home.

      Awake

      what will wake us today

      to the ongoing darkening

      of light across the nation,

      to the ignorance moving

      up and down the streets

      battering strangers brown

      like Christ the pale faces

      say makes them diseased?

      what will make us sick of

      the suffering, the poisoning

      hate, the neighbors quietly

      becoming willing tools, the

      broken bodies beneath the

      weight of white power? how

      long until we hear the crying

      sounds of knotted throats, the

      plain truth annihilated on city

      streets, the blistering crosses

      aflame and deaf to shouted pleas?

      when will the country plot a

      course to mercy, hope, justice

      and peace?

      Factory Girl

      once again you are home

      from the factory slipping out

      of work clothes covered with

      scraps of cloth you spent the day

      cutting. you undo the fake pearl

      necklace laying it on the altar next

      to the Cross then take off shoes to let

      swollen feet begin their bare tour of

      the apartment without pain. you walk

      to the bedroom window sliding it open

      to have a look at the potted flowers on

      the fire escape that eagerly call out your

      name like prayer trying to reach the ears

      of the everlasting. in the kitchen by the sink

      full of last night’s dishes you recall being a

      child of Spanish earth and digging soil with your

      hands to help corn and beans squeeze through

      land to grow. now, your rough hands with broken

      nails are clamped to a factory machine you work

      while sitting on a pitiable stool to make the petty

      wages keeping you in a cramped fifth-floor room

      with scanty daily bread. when the clock strikes

      nine you go sit in your living room with an old

      Bible to pray with used hope for an end to this

      unforgiving spell.

      The Vigil

      we came to the vigil to

      light candles for tragic

      times, hold light up to

      the dark, bear witness to

      justice despite the protests

      of those born another way.

      we came with voices to

      condemn the ghastly white

      cotton sheets their bodies drape,

      and the hating tongues they

      flap on our streets. we came

      with signs in hand, voices to

      give evil a name, and in living

      colors that have never given

      God a reason to complain.

      Cobbled Street

      we searched for days on the

      cobbled streets of the Bronx

      still bearing witness to stories

      believed on them СКАЧАТЬ