a version of this poem was included in the anthology IN COMPANY<\/em><\/strong>, edited by Lee Bartlett, V.B. Price, and Dianne Edenfield Edwards, published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2004<\/p>\n\n\n\n the truth revealed can stop us in our tracks…..faith keeps us going<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mitchrayes.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cristo-1024x566.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n \nSTIGMATA<\/strong>\n\n\nhere I chalk a path uncertain\n\nthree crosses carved in a young man\u2019s back\nthen forty years against forgetting\n\tcrucial fictions traced in dirt\nburied with all the first stones hurled\nthis old man removes his shirt\n\n\n[December, 1984. Waiting for a tetanus shot at the Northeastern Regional Hospital in Las Vegas, NM. There is an unassuming elderly gent next to me, about to be admitted, and members of the ER staff are assisting him with changing out of his street clothes. When his tee shirt comes off, we all see that his back has been scarred with the three crosses of the Penitente Brotherhood.]<\/em><\/mark>\n\n\nhow long can it be since he\u2019s last seen his sister?\n\na steel blade desperate to undo her flesh\n\tsevers her evening prayer\nand having dared to stand and lose\na woman raises what\u2019s left of her hand\n\nsomewhere unaware a man sips his cup\nunfolds his paper unfolds his grief his rage\nhis sister\u2019s blood is front page news\n\n\n[August 31, 1983. Members of a Druze militia slit the throats of several dozen civilians in the Christian village of Bmariam in central Lebanon. The attack is in retaliation for the massacre of Druze non-combatants the week before, at the hands of Christian Phalangists. Among those killed are the Maronite patriarch of the village and his wife, who happens to be the sister of my grandfather. He reads the account published in a Detroit newspaper several days later.]<\/em><\/mark>\n\n\nand how long has it been since he has seen his brother?\n\nthe lake is like a mirror\na boy swims out alone past the calls past the buoy\nhis foot brushes something\n\tmakes him shiver makes him see\na stranger\u2019s hand is waving from the underwater meadow\n\n\n[May 28, 1972. Michael Reid gets separated from his friends while swimming in Cass Lake in southeastern Michigan, and never makes it back to shore-- one of twelve local drownings that Memorial Day weekend. A close friend of mine makes contact with the submerged body several days later. They are both fourteen years old at the time.]<\/mark><\/em>\n\n\nthere is a place of no returning\nwhere the dead will bury the dead\n\ta single voice is crying\ncrying for a father anyone to take this cup\n\ndowncast broken waiting in a street of jaded brows\none is crowned in razor wire\none dream-dashed or angry flees to the end of a rope frozen there\n\tor to a glitter of glass from ten stories up\nten quick stories in the dwindling air\n\n\n[November, 1983, Wayne State University campus. Something in the air catches my eye. It is a young woman soundlessly dropping to her death from the tenth floor fire escape of Mackenzie Hall on the corner of Cass and Putnam.]<\/mark><\/em>\n\n\nhere I toss a line out for the boy I used to be\n\tto hang a washed out faith upon\n\nas he stumbles over another body\nand ignorant keeps walking\n\tand walking on knows more:\ncomes upon a motorcycle wrapped around a lamp post\nand looking back begins to run\n\n\n[Spring, 1974, walking home from school. There\u2019s a guy passed out on the sidewalk, which is not unprecedented. Several steps later I see a mangled motorcycle and realize he\u2019s been thrown from the bike, maybe forty feet.]<\/mark><\/em>\n\n\nno darkened sun foretells what will become of him\nand it is in not knowing he\u2019ll have to find\n\this hope and try to hold his grief\n\nas two hands grub another supper\n\tmustard seed and locust bread\na sponge soaked in drugged wine\n\nwater and blood a sustenance\npowerful and brief as rain\n\tin this land of fallen temples\nthat shall not rise again<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Recently Published<\/strong> (with gratitude to these publications)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n