It’s an orchid of light among amaranths
on the mossy wall held together
by deep roots in its cracks.
It evokes my mother, flower of May,
cosmic flower of sensitive petals.
Gloria in excelsis, mother, revived
in the meadow’s tenderness: in the lamb
that, offering its wool in toquilla straw,
offered itself first in sacrifice.
How I felt her hand on my shoulder
while the lamb, honeyedly tender,
licks my neck! How the dove
coos, doving its nests,
till it chocks full its gardens with chirping.
Gloria in excelsis, mother, blooming
at this bell-tower hour of the Angelus
with the time clock that still beats
in the bedroom of calendar love.
There she is in its interior, opening
wide the arms of the eave:
she is in her wicker chair, a rocker,
filigreeing her daydreams, and how joyful
I see her spreading out on the balcony of dawn
those garments of sun she embroidered!
Framed with light: the warm table,
the bread of love, the communion of wheat,
the bright day of thanksgiving
and the profile of a benevolent face.
There she is in the sweetest home
of meringues and meads
with that maternal toast with milk
facing the tablecloth of unselfish pine
where she firmly held her cooking pot.
There she is in the patio of the lilies,
preparing her bouquets of hopes
and slicing the pineapple and papaya
with her baskets of love and hands full.
Gloria in excelsis, mother, flourishing
among forest fruits, sensitive,
blinking till she feels the wings
of the blue nest appearing in the woods.
Ceiba tree of great stock, surrounded
by innocent sparrows,
with its leaves of many looks,
how I see myself grow with her ancestry
of leafy genealogical kindnesses!
How, in her, I see myself become a tree
when she looks at me with leaf-filled look,
though she has her eyelids closed!