The Spanish Mission

 It rose up in a broken tumble
Somewhere above the coastline
As if a mighty storm-bound
Ship of faith crashed there some
Five hundred years ago
You could almost hear the
Tortured moaning of martyred saints
In the tumbleweed tossed
About the rocks

You and I climbed high, then higher
Reaching beyond ourselves to the ruins
Between stone icons and statues
Of the Blessed Virgin we had our secrets
And laid waste to our sins
Our love a deserted holy place
Of shifting mystery

I could almost catch the beginning of you
There where you joined with me
The rocks crumbling beneath
Our moving bodies and dropped with
Pebbled rustling to the thrashing sea below
Naked, man and woman he created
In the heated incense of sex

Sometimes I let my thoughts cast back there
To those Franciscan heights
Where I see you proud and standing hard
Trailing your fingers in the baptismal font
Beckoning me from sainted memory
To take your hand and wander
Into the sun-blessed shadows
And seek the glory there

-Zoe Richardson