Santa Teresa

How you shudder on my skin. What scenes from our past remain sealed in you, what roots still not starved? Pine trees and sunflower patches and olive groves embrace me now, the meadows of your life, yellow hills, pure skies. What visions of Jerusalem, the skirts of Galilee, flow still through your blood? What voices came from the hereafter to distill your tears? * Alone with your secrets, what refuge could the masses offer your tormented soul? What sanctity could you be seeking in the shrines of Sheol? When they called you Santa, Teresa, did your shame cry Temple whore? * Who knew your bed of vows in musty stonewalled nights? What is it that you conjure in your dreams? Faces, hands, blades, a hellish phosphorous glow sow evil in your flesh, now disappearing under habit. What did you do with the horrors, Teresa, when you tired? Light some candles, chase the bats that keep calling in the belfry. Your childhood pillaged by the roadside. How many forms of rape brought you here, Hermanita? * Bleeding blades of grass, why did the angel tarry? What remains of the innocence that was? Where can you go from here, Teresa de Jesus? Fast you wed yourself to them till death doth part. Then you created an order. What order did you have? To whom did you entrust your truth? Vengeance you sought from deep within, measure for measure, but the halo festered round you. But a step there was between you and death. Why did the angel come? But the halo bore its glow in you like leprosy, ashes of victims of autos de fe forever engulfing Avila’s air. No water to cleanse you. * Tormented descalza, with your dozen sisters and Juan de la Cruz, your confidante, confessor. Though not over the law of Moses, you are always suspect. All your loves oppressed, hermana, all your loves oppressed. Juan de la Cruz, himself a New Christian, takes your hand into his, whispers about the long night which would purge your soul, and how in the end El-Señor will come through. * Now you cloister yourself in the dragon’s lair. Lock and barrel, vanquished, you kneel; alone, you weep. Who might comprehend the depth of your torment? In the dungeons of your grief, secretly you mend your rents, embroider for yourself new angel wings. * What Hebrew name were you given, Santa Teresa de Avila? What name did your mother whisper in your ear? About whom did she sing ballads through chilling childhood eves? Many days you tormented your flesh, neither bread nor water, seeking mending for other torments, ever waning. Many days you agonized over the voices that ceased calling. How would you plead your people’s case before the king of kings? And so did your maidens fast, all twelve, tears and supplication. Do you still remember, Esterika, how your mother sang to you about the queen of Anusim? Oh violated flesh and spirit, did you toil in vain for an Iberian Purim? * El día grande. Behold the friars set out on their Devil’s dance, like ravens in hunt; they close in on your people. Prostrate before the icon, what whips your spirit you must hide from the Crucified looming over you? Hush. Your cries must not leave your lips. Kol Nidrei, Santa Teresa of Avila, sister in bondage, the Lord of the Hebrews will come to release you from all your vows.