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Second-Hand Saints

Back of the sacristy, behind the frayed

Lamé of the purple vestments of our forgotten

Lents, they brood like memory: rejects

From the revised pantheon of our changing

Faith as the parish priest intoned:

Focus on the Son, my brethren, remember,

Even the Mother is only a way to the Son.

And we wonder what had happened

To our grandmothers’ ardent devotions:

The garlands offered, the scapulars worn,

The votive candles burned for the wayward

Child, the grandson venturing out into the city,

Far from the munificence of her trusted saints.

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2nd Hand Saints,

oil painting by Pancho Villanueva

Or we find them in the antique shop,

Revered for the odor of the past they exude,

By which their values are assessed:

From what hinterland barrio or crumbling visita

Did they come, whose altar did they watch,

Gathering the soot of oil lamps,

What vigil for which fiesta or famine

Did they promise bounty, relief, miracle?

What shoulders bore them in the chanting

Of the Perdon, the dawn processions

Seeking mercy from calamity or retribution?

Tara, Kagurangnan Maria!

Perdon! Perdon! An debotos mo sorogon,

Sa mga sakit agawon! And the hunger ceased,

The grumbling volcano quieted.

Were they imported from Mexico,

Retinue of the Black Nazarene?

How our artisans have improved

Upon the ivory faces of Lebanese virgins!

What wood hides behind the flaking

Plaster or ivory, such naive drapery

Of robes and habits, such whorls

Of cloud embedded with cherub wings!

Back of the sacristy, on the antique shop

Shelf, inside museum vitrines,

They brood, indifferent to our notions

Of grace, history, worship: Found

Objects in our memory of polychrome.

  

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November 18, 2008

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