Salvation, by Christa Pandey

Photograph by Christa Pandey. Cruzando El Rio Bravo, by Luis Jiminez (USA), 1989.

Salvation

He hoists her on his shoulders like
Christopherus the Jesus child.
She, an adult, is heavy and
two little hands protruding 
from her wrap make clear 
that there too is a child.
Indigena, she has to cross
the river high and dry,
has paid for this coyote’s service,
a mercantile exchange,
her gamble for a better life.

Giant Christopherus, 
longing to serve 
the greatest king on earth,
became a human ferryman. 
One day he shouldered a small boy 
to carry him across a moody stream.
A trifling task, this lightweight child,
though as he waded in, the river swelled, 
the child a sudden lead weight pressing down.
Christopherus succumbed 
and almost drowned. The child 
then told he was the Christ.
The doubting man had found 
his king to serve.

The strong coyote, broad-footed 
and muscular, just does his job, 
earns daily chow for his own family.
His faith is money and the endless 
stream of people dreaming of a better life.

Christa Pandey
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Christa Pandey: "Art in its various forms has interested me (Christa Pandey) for years. But finding words of transformation for art is a relatively new experience. Words for other experiences and feelings have shaped the poet I have become in my second half of life. Many words have been gathered into poems, published in journals and anthologies and even three chapbooks: Southern Seasons, Maya, and Hummingbird Wings."

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Christopherus, by Tilman van der Burch (Germany), 1470.