Poetry
(In Honor of Saint Pedro Claver* 1580-1654)
"Slave To The Slaves"
Mainmast's pendulum totters on the brink
Freely swinging to meet waves' ends;
Shadowed below, fetid blackness blends
Flaying the prone cargo so rawly linked.
Skin sheds as Africa hollows
And manic venom embalms the void
With orphaned corpses bound to toil
In cold, wormed fallows another sows.
Awash in the chrism of a new world
Armor drifts, revealing the hallowed gifts
Of saving and saved: mirrors of an image.
As dark hold empties, the one pearl
Fixes the eye, and bonding, lifts
Lean sight beyond Cartagena to season's edge.
*Pedro Claver was a Jesuit priest who ministered for more than 35 years to the slaves arriving from Africa to the New World.
Michael Varga 1981
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