Carmen Vega

La Santa

Mi virgencita milagrosa, ampåranos
gran señora y líbranos hoy,
líbranos hoy, liberanos.”

A virginal pinkface a, a long narrow
nose and a sweet head tucked
beneath a white veil, aropada.

She stands with her hands wide open

Welcoming all to come and implore,

Welcoming all who come and implore her

Merciful miracles by the fringe of her turquoise blue robe.

Her habit is a white gown with a turquoise

Waist band, nine pom-pom balls at the end,

Worn for a time when the promise is granted

As recompense, sacrifice retribution, or

while waiting for the wish to come true.

Mom wore the habit for La Milagrosa

When she expected miracles.

But she stopped when the prisons locked.

Their door were shut and we waved good-bye

to her son behind the plexi-glass window.

We’d listen through the plastic phone to his

Forlorn voice distanced by the black receiver.

This was so long ago and yet

It pains me as if it were yesterday.

I cry with her in empathy for all the mothers

Who leave their sons, sealed from

Touch, no humane contact.

I cry with her about a world of pain

tantamount to a volcanic eruption

rearing apart from the core.

In a world of isolation, no one to turn to

when the day is done.  No one to save you

and our wayward son…

In a land of the free-dom-dom-dom

In the land of the free where doomsday

finds the unprotected valiant souls

Seeking shelter from the rain back home

where the persecution never ended

you just grew used to it.

In the land where the roads are paved with

cold gold and you hear the sounds,

unfamiliar talk, but your tongue is stuck to

your own, back home.

Where to turn, who to run, where do you

find comfort?  When she stands there

welcoming you in silence.  She hears your

plight and listens without judgment.

You tell her your sorrow and you tell her

Your dreams and you ask for forgiveness,

Because you acted and now we are here

Beneath the setting sun of a strange country.

You ask her to forgive you because you

incited the departure from a place where we

knew our way in familiar streets and alleys

and now your child is lost.

Is it all your fault?

Will she help you now?

Can she bring him back?

Will she bare her mercy upon you?

You’ll wear her habit months in turn!

If she’d grant you solace from the acrid rain

in the strange terrain of the foreign soil

where your hops and dreams were shattered. 

And you have no one to talk to.

“Por favor mi virgen, madre de misericordia

amáranos gran señora y libranos hoy,

líbranos hoy, liberanos.”

Free us from the nurning rain in the new

terrain where we hear the sounds, but they

Bear no name we could wear proudly.

In this foreignb land we don’t understand

and yet we’ve got to go on living.

Help us mother of mercy, we implore you.

Have mercy upon us and bring our sons home.

There is much to bring our sons home

from:  drugs, destitution,

unemployment, war a world of disillusions.

“I implore you mother of mercy,

bring my son home…”

© Carmen Vega, Los Angeles, 2001