Guadalupana Procession

There’s no place else
except here where I walk
over slow cobblestones
in the holy middle
of a crowd of Guadalupanos.
Following the statue with her golden rays
we step through the village streets
a single pulsing being,
onwards to the church.
It’s Mexico, 2018 but if
if I close my eyes and simply feel,
I could be walking
on the cobblestones of Crete,
4000 years ago.

There is no before or after.
This hour of moments
has banished all others.
Those lined up on the sidewalk,
neither spectate nor bystand,
but participate with sacred faces
in the act of devotion.
Boy adolescents bear her image
on tight black tees.
Little ones in parent’s arms,
or sitting on their shoulders,
absorb the fervor as they breathe.

Women among us,
having promised the Mother,
walk barefoot on the stones.*
Not a parade, not a march.
We hear the horns and drums,
We twitch when skyrocket prayers
blast into the heavens.
But as She snakes us onward,
we compose, together,
a lustrous humming;
just under the skin,
a quiet song of belonging
to Her. To Her.

©Susa Silvermarie 2018

*They are fulfilling a manda, a spanish word used here to mean a promise. They have prayed to Nuestra Señora for something, perhaps a child’s health or the safe return of a son from working in the dangerous North, and have made a manda that when it is granted, they will walk barefoot in Her procession.