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,
