René Gomez

“Alba”

(1969)

A thousand Marias swarm our tiny village-world.

It’s not enough to be devoid of

• place-on-map

• telephone wires

• paved roads

• hot/warm water

• faithful men

We must be devoid of an ounce of thought, to boot—

shall you let poverty suck your creative stirrings, too?

So go ahead: blah-blah-blah-worship

our Virgin Mary like all the million

blah-blah-blahs who worshipped her the 

exact. same. way.

and who blah-blah-blahd their children

into existence with the same old intentions

and the same old inventions

to make them hope and want,

only to be thrust into the same old swirl of

Blah-Blah-Blah: the capricious stirrings of Gods,

a life marked by the same old rituals,

the same old woes-and-wins, the constant

wasteland of a time sprinkled stingily

with sporadic sublimes.

Yes, I have grown soured,

wondering if in my final hour my flimsy saint

will show to take me up or down or

wherever it is, I shall go…

For when your daughter’s grown,

and I’ve long passed through,

I leave her here this last haiku:

When the sky wakens,

smile up to sleepless Saint,

and remember Me.