Migrants and Pilgrims.

Sometimes there are no words
And yet we find them

The vicar of Christ
Hablando español desde el capitolio en Washington.

The bishop of Rome
crowding New York streets that have seen never-ending dreams begin

Los rosarios de mi abuelita
"Ave Maria, Dios te Salve Maria...."

Prayers prayed tears of troubled hope
for my 16 year old father when he left his home

Another migrant, another story, another never-ending dream

Finally reaching New York
The unforeseen arrivals and goodbyes

The anonymous shadows of yesterday and today and tomorrow
holding the city hostage

City gasping for breath to contain the emotions of encounter

The tired and the poor and those
yearning to breathe free
One and the same stubborn ray of hope-

We are all scaling walls in the night
backpacks wet with tears

Wetbacks wet
in the ancestral waters of tribal hope

Tribes of poor peoples aching for a just Jerusalem

We all step foot off paper planes onto new lands
Migrants and Pilgrims
Pilgrims and Migrants

Ours is a spiritual promise- ready to engulf the world in all sorts of fires of different types of loves

Sometimes there are no words
but there are Fires

cold enough To refresh the World in the aching heat of all that has ever ached for justice
and all that has ever dreamed the fullness of love's full night

You know what I am talking about:
That loving look on the subway when your eyes dance with mine
The tired steps on nights when Mother simply wants to get home
The journey filled hope of the children that live in us all

Come to me my lovers---Popes, and Poor Peoples, Peasants, and Presidents
from every world, from every continent
Together our fires will refresh the earth
And wake it from systematic slumbers
Slowly finally embracing wordless utterly beautiful and wise ways.