PRAYER AT THE SHRINE OF OUR LADY

We stopped here the first spring.
And before the altar of Our Lady
of Guadalupe, beneath the blue skirts
of her mercy, in the ghost glass
reflections of candle and mesa
we sprinkled a prayer of tobacco
and surrendered to each other like wax
in the jar of Jesus' burning heart.
I could not then imagine the flicker
extinguished, nor the weight
of the penitentes' beads that
replaced the rosary of your kisses.
This time I stopped alone, offered
leaf and smoke to the six directions,
and then in meditation mudra,
before the imperfect door of glass
that merges inside and out,
I unfolded a prayer someone left:
"Keep her with me always".
So simple. So impossible.
Before I left I lit
a candle I knew would be out
before I reached the end of the twisting
road that rises to the top
of El Cerro De Corazon,
and then loses itself in the
merciless blue of the sky.



© 2006 by Richard W. Todd

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