Saint Joseph and the Boy Jesus, by Roberto Christiano

Saint Joseph and The Boy Jesus, by Josefa de Obidos (Portugal) 1630.

Saint Joseph and the Boy Jesus

The boy Jesus is guiding his foster father,
holding his hand as they walk along
a path of stone. Joseph is not old,
not white and bewildered,
his face still has a rose blush and his hair
is thick and black, but his shoulders
are weary, so weary and his face downcast.
Above the pair, the sun is descending
as gathering winds bend the pines.
Jesus, a soft, glowing boy of ten,
topped by a halo of gold spikes,
his face like an angelic girl,
his tunic a flowing pink,
leads Joseph calmly toward the viewer.
Soon they will step out of the picture. 
 
In the last year of my father’s life,
we made a pilgrimage to Fatima.
In the dry, August mountain air,
José Christiano, weary with cancer,
turned to me and asked,
“What shall I pray for?”
We paused before the Holm oak tree,
faltering with age. Years before,
my pastor told me Joseph died
with Jesus by his side,
with Jesus holding his hand.                                                                                                  
“Pray to Saint Joseph for a good death,”
I said, and held his hand,
not like the cherubic boy Jesus,
but like a beggar asking for change.          
 
Josefa de Óbidos painted
Saint Joseph and the Boy Jesus
a few miles from the pine wood shack
where my father was born.
Josefa’s father taught her
to paint the soul in every face.
My father searched a lifetime
to find the face of his soul.
After the onset of illness,
Josefa’s father came to depend on her,
and here his story ends.
History will not tell us more.
Did she hold his weary hand
as they walked down the path,
the winds threatening and night falling?

Roberto Christiano
​
Roberto Christiano is a prize winning poet and short story writer whose work is continuously published. He has won two back to back poetry prizes from Writer.org for his seasonal poems as well as the 2010 Fiction Award from The Northern Virginia Review. His poetry has been anthologized in The Gavea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry. His short plays have been produced at the Source Theatre in D.C. Port of Leaving, a poetry chapbook, is available from Finishing Line Press.

website: robertochristiano.weebly.com