Antigua, Noviembre

A Guatemalan woman with glasses

is covered in a black shroud. Smiling,

she holds a picture of Christ bearing

his cross below her bosom.

She stands inside a crowd floating in clouds

of incense above the cobblestone square

outside La Merced, this grand yellow church

at the top of colonial Antigua.

They too are dressed in darkness in the Autumn

afternoon. People gather together to celebrate

or to mourn in this small plaza, perhaps both,

as Christ crucified is lifted high on Indian shoulders

onto the narrow streets in a moody procession

weaving like smoke through the sunlit town.

Mournful horns like dozens of milky doves

sound their sorrows as believers suffused

with burning fragrance carry Christ onwards.

Silent crowds grow thick. Men and women,

the old and young, stand in doorways along

this trail of tears, reverent and watchful.

I, the gringo, am sobbing in my private pilgrimage

amongst this throng. A sudden unplanned trip

up the slopes of Mt. Calvary may help grieve

the relationship just dead days ago

in the Mayan village of Jaibalito where perched

above vast surreal Lago de Atitlan and its three

volcanoes looming, we died, were not buried,

shall not be resurrected.