Luncheon Reflections from Si-Wah’s

zen -- dan davis, (c) 2009

LUNCHEON REFLECTIONS FROM SI-WAH’S

— for Father Luis Olivares

The steaming chop suey fumes from its

Styrofoam compartment—I chew, chew,

Deliberate and intentful—like the Eucharist—

Chewing, chewing, cautious against a gag.

The frail jaundiced face squints from page

One of the METRO SECTION: 

          Voice of the Poor Dies of AIDS

Dead comes and comes—fills the pews—

Barbed in quagmires of non-religious service—

Dead comes like it came for Oscar and Jean—

Like the seven, strewn, and left like fish collected

After the miracle and lain on the grass to dry. 

Don’t you want to be a saint? we were asked  

During vocation week.

 

Since the departure there are cries for an

Imminent canonization—for this one once

Called communist—from commune, gather

Together—ringing high and higher—beyond

The Portiuncula—big word the Franciscans

Taught us—sing out and outer walls beyond

The hallowed and gilded halls of Vatican City—

Its own principality—where life is easy when

It’s dead.

 

No threat, now, no more disease to cause

Clerical dis-ease—words were sanctuary—

Freed from the UFW prison—saint me, saint

You—freed from sarcoma—the final sacrament

Withheld, given, threatened, received—and at

Last only will you drink in glorious libation from

A carpenter’s splintery cup—the cup poured like

Blood upon La Placita where Satan’s winds blow

With cries from farm workers in Bakersfield and

Santa Paula—like the rioting winds of this forlorn

California through the east courtyard where once

You worked for freedom—you have goodbyed this

World, which, like the fortune cookie I crumble

Open at the end of my meal, is empty.

1993

Dan Davis, © 2009

~ by Dan Davis on 10.19.09.