poetry

From "Misterios"
by J. Neil C. Garcia

The Assumption

She was always, to begin with,
an assumption.

As in: when the invitation came
to be the prized vessel of his visit,
it was assumed she would agree.

When he admonished her
for wielding a mother’s right to worry,
or perhaps to ask a tiny favor,
the narrative took for granted
she would keep silent, and not nag.

And even then, at his immolation’s
bloodied foot, it was never asked
if she would not mind being looked after
by the beardless stranger who stood there,
shaking, by her side.

All their lives together,
he went ahead with his life, his death, his life,
supposing only her calm complicity.

He was a good son: he asked for
little else from his mother.
In this sense, she feels
she indeed has been blessed.

But whatever these accounts must presume
about her dumb submissiveness,
let it be known that, in the marrow of her being,
she has always understood
about her options.

As with everyone, basically:
yes or no.

She is humble enough
not to presume her own fortitude.
Assent is not, she feels, a question of the will,
for the will is not what makes a person act.

Rather, it is desire
which is the true motivator.
And with her own heart’s wishes,
she can brag at least she has kept touch.

To be honest, the secret to her success
is her power of imitation.
That when she heard the angel’s query
barbed with warning, sugared with flattery,
she graciously made herself believe
her desire is the same as her Lord’s.

And judging from the glorious outcome
of their paired actions, it must be.

Call it the imagination, or love,
and her own unique aptitude for it,
but through it she was able,
all her life, to be certain
she desired for herself
what her God desired for her.

And because her son was his emissary,
she wished nothing except his own joy, too.
Even when it meant death’s grotesque form,
and her heart shattering alongside his.

Love: the great harmonizer.
That disappears distinctions, blurs edges,
blends bitter contrarieties into
something palatable.

By virtue of it, she has seen
how possibly her son and she are one.
As when she bore him in her body, their breaths,
if not their dreams, are coextensive
with each other.

A gardener by heart, she does not need to be told
that seed and flower are aspects
of the same fugitive growth.
That day and night are sides of one leaf.
That the ground wheat and its risen bread
are inflections of the same
warm blessing.

And that death is nothing if not life
turning, as it must,
into difference.

Why then should it be deemed peculiar
that she who has seen herself
so perfectly in her beloved’s image,
should also follow in his wake?

As he died, so does she.
But like him, dies not into the end,
but into beginning’s formless
possibility.

She rises into the sky,
and the infinite perspective it affords.
She discovers her rudimentary senses
and her love’s wisdom have been correct:

she is lifted into heaven from the earth,
which is nothing if not heaven’s
assumed self.

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