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At San Francisco de AsisIn the rectory of San Francisco de Asis,I join a crowd before a life-size portrait of Christ standing by the sea of Galilee, beckoning us with sorrowful eyes. Now I will turn off the lights, our guide announces, and you will see the glow around his body and a shadowy cross rising from his left shoulder. The luminescence is a mystery. I hear murmurs of assent but the darkness before me stubbornly retains its density. I tell her that neither halo nor cross has appeared. You eyes haven't adjusted, she assures me. Try taking off your glasses. I return to the church unenlightened where I sit beneath heavy log rafters and think of the missionaries counting souls gained for the Spanish king as if casting out nets for God were a calculation of power. I think of the pueblo peoples who sheltered them from Apache raids, who taught them the mysteries of humble mud and straw. |
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Issue #13, January, 2000 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.