Stony the Road
Harold J. Recinos
Stony the Road
Copyright © 2019 Harold J. Recinos. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
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paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-7440-2
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-7441-9
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-7442-6
Manufactured in the U.S.A. April 4, 2019
The Foreigner
you departed for a city
in another country to a
place you heard of once
beneath the low hanging
branches of a tree. you are
in the caravan of brown faces,
among the mothers with infants,
the youth undoing shackles, the
broken elders hardly able to walk
and the disabled children never
mentioned in American news who
get pushed across the Spanish speaking
borders in old wheelchairs. in the
evening around holes with dancing
flames, the strangers with whom you
walk discuss the hounds barking at the
border, the soldiers in confused wait, the
High-priests so expert at looking the other
way and the English only people who never
imagine the dreams of Christ. we shall
wait in the darkness you left behind hoping
to touch your hand someday, we will pray
in the old village church to the obscure
heaven that one day will make a way for
us, and the candles in front of the blessed
Mother will be kept burning until we are
certain you have crossed the river, safe.
on that day we promise to tell your story
like a sweet biblical tale.
We Shall Overcome
we shall with courageous faith
stand in the public squares to
face despisers with gargantuan
displays of love. where the wind
blows, we shall march to overcome
the boundaries, the pain, the fear,
the inequalities of these splintering
years. we shall overcome with the
simplicity of tenderness and God’s
sublime tears. after all the waiting,
we shall overcome in countless ways
the penetration of nails into our dark
skin, the ignorant mockery of the
Spirit above and the butchery of
Christ’s injured love. we shall overcome
the spit in the face, the rubbish they
say and the theologies of hate also
easily preached. we shall overcome
with the colored Christ who came
to give his life for us. soon, and very
soon, we shall overcome with the truth
that hung on a tree.
Wake the Dead
listen to the drums beating
out the sounds of the centuries
beseeching, the tune of snapping
chains, the squealing of tyrants
removed by the nameless, the
revolution that moved into a
White House built by African
slaves, these blood-soaked days
on the impatient earth hosting the
reckless bully with a vacuous brain
who relentlessly throws shit at life.
hear the poor he puts in cages, the
huddled masses to the gale tossed,
the children from across the border
crying about freedom in loathing
disrepair, the black lives stomped
by nationalist cops, confederate
marches full of ignorant white hate,
and America face down in a shameful
shallow grave. what became
