By Hal Recinos, Professor of Church and Society
From his forthcoming work, The Coming Day (Wipf and Stock)
we are splinters from
heaven, fragments of
divine love, beautiful
and varied dark bodies
made at the beginning
of time by God. we are
the night in the desert
with toddlers afraid, the
eyes watchful of clouds
that rush across borders,
the public square, the market,
the cemeteries, the jails,
and the poor you will see
in the great house beyond
stars. we are the hungry,
the lame, the naked, the sick,
the women, the widows, the
Gay and the unnamed leaving
Christ speechless in church.
we are the ruins of conquest,
the blood on your flag, the
Virgin de Guadalupe, the
tale of climate change and
the loud screams you hear in
your heads, the malls, the raids,
the streets and inside those fancy
flat screen TVs. we are the people
too black, too brown, too red, too
yellow, too weak, too small, and
too poor to be alive say the White
hooded loud voices euphoric
with idiocy—yet we rise on
these forbidden streets!!