Our Lady of Sorrows

Untitled, from the Silueta series, 1980, by Ana Mendieta has appeared to the mountain dwellers, her grief  engraved where stone softens to clay. Keep your eyes sharp for a dagger. In its hilt, you’ll find her face pressed to the earth’s cheek. Kiss this sacred spot before the rains wash it away like her orphaned feet. Notched heart cradles a planet heavy with night- mares flying into empty mouths. Listen for their thirsty murmurs. She’ll push her ponderous child into the dew of  a San Felipe dawn, name him Salvador. They’ll rest beneath a web spun umbilical, eclipsed from our human eyes. • Our Lady stone             clay earth rain orphaned heart eclipsed