La Santísima

Black, white, red
Mother watches over us
Without judgment
Opens her arms to us
Without reservation
Matron saint of the dispossessed
She lifts us up toward heaven
And does not judge
The parts of us we have picked up
From living in hell.

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For the rejected, judgment hovers constantly over heavy shoulders. The first time they meet someone who truly accepts them as they are, it can be as water falling on sand… or on hard packed soil.

One moves as with resistance and suddenly! A stumble as it disappears and the body overcompensates. The comfort of the familiar beckons; they are jarred by the discordant narrative that there is nothing wrong with them.

Can the fox stop gnawing at his leg long enough to recognize a method of egress?

She waits with patience. All come to her in their good time.