A PLACE TO PRAY

A PLACE TO PRAY

 

(Grandmother’s Oración)

 

She would pull us down to our knees

on sundowns like this when dusk

was most gentle, tides ebbed quietly

like a murmured prayer: Oración!  

Pray, little ones, He will keep us safe.

Pray that in the dark, we find our way.

Pray that the night will be our blanket.

Pray that the dawn brings back our sun.  

Was it the distinct tremolo on her voice

that makes these echoes of an evening

orison cut through this familiar silence

that has survived brief lives and years?  

Running back to evacuation shelters

in caverns carved through mountains

to hide us from our slit-eyed marauders,

we scurried with gleaned root crop dug 

from scorched soil left ashen in bombed

out farms, but sunsets were her signal

moments when she would stop us dead

from our absconding: Vamos a rezar!

Let us pray! Pray that we get there,

With all our hands, fingers, and feet.

Pray that in the dark we find our way,

Pray that sunrise will be there. Pray!  

Sudden rain on foggy evenings like this,

the power out, brings back the shadows

of that past world. In the dark, I pray

she blesses me with a touch on my back  

and whisper that she, too, is still lifting

her voice to whom it may still concern,

we get to eat the root crop in our bags,

and children in the desert find theirs.  

The war years are gone, but fearsome

havoc promises to catch up with us yet:

I pray the bright clearing in the woods

where a tree has fallen is a place to pray.

 

---Albert B. Casuga