Arts Alive San Antonio

Natalia Trevino’s powerful poem is from a series “responding to the Seven Sorrows of Mary,” Mary being the mother of Jesus. “This sorrow poem is about her ache over the loss of her child, but also a response to the repeated loss of children due to the global pandemic and the loss of children due racism,” wrote Trevino in a note to us. Artist Sherita Armstrong’s lament painting, “Same as it ever was.” is the perfect companion piece.

Sorrow #5. The Crucifixion:

“They crucified Him. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, His Mother. . . . He saith to the disciple: Behold thy Mother.” – John XIX, l8-25-27.

By Natalia Trevino

I tell Maria, she can define racism as a pandemic
in her argument paper now that she’s living
it. Clothes her son’s face in mask and clear
shield, holds him from the public
school, close to her body, the only logical root
of salvation. Since at her son’s death,
after he becomes a temporary host of spread,
her own soul will likely leave her body
join him just as Mary’s did. Maria won’t
split herself on the altar of freedom
from sins her son didn’t commit that night,
in protest, alone, the contours of his hood
striking a match round the world.
His puffed chest, a deflated cloud of breath.

and if I pray this right
I am to believe
each time I let him escape my thoughts
I revive her sorrow #5                                   

The viral envelope, a diaphanous fat,
thin membrane, stolen cells, tissue
strand, like a string of pearls round
a small neck.  Wanting home. Like us.
Teaches its host the salvation of multiplication.
We pretend it has no conscience, though
we know it has a will. Saharan dust golds
the sky tonight, fires blacken out the sun,
smother the empty coast, fray our already frail
connectivity, and the day crucified Jesus said, “Behold
thy Mother” to his stupefied friends, he crowned
her mother of all, enveloped her with the sorrow
of his gentefied body, under arrest. His once
lifted chest a delicate memory of breath.