Other Seasons. Harold J. Recinos

      [Sacred]

      I noticed one afternoon sitting

      on the stoop the quiet figure of

      an old woman looking left and

      right like she was about to reveal

      something. centuries ago her

      ancestors inhaled the mysteries

      reflected through her wrinkled

      eyes, they built the sacred cities

      in the forests and the clouds, and

      charted the movement of the stars.

      and now this treasure sits on the

      stoop next to me drying children’s

      tears.

      [The Star]

      when the oldest star shines in heaven

      to announce the coming visit, I will

      look out the window for the hunched

      old women, the junkies they fear, the

      mothers who are hustling, the children

      with tough questions and the excluded

      on the streets. together, we will sing the

      ancient ways to have you come nearer,

      before our time is done. I will build a

      cart for sorrows to collect the worried

      news, every word that stumbles, the

      cries for the forgiveness of the block’s

      dead. I will walk the night with the

      staring sky to knock on the weeping

      doors, invite the aging forgers, trampled

      prostitutes, unrepentant gangsters, predators,

      murderers, thieves, even tired old priests,

      to line up for bread in your passionate world

      that comes. when the oldest star goes forth

      in the sky, I will climb the tallest building

      to cry like Hannah from the heart for you to

      listen.

      [The Longing]

      the streets have grown a little older,

      the wails of infants walked in strollers

      hardly ever heard, the old Jewish

      fiddler who played the alleys with

      music from another world has long

      been dead, the priest who everyone

      said had kept a trench on his tongue

      for just in case days was lifted to

      paradise, and the piragüeros on the

      boulevard come from Mexico, now.

      when you forget what it was like on

      the block come visit to stand in front of

      Henry’s building that still has a Big H

      painted on the second floor wall, lean against