Enjoy,
\nTom”<\/p>\n
Tom, we are in your debt one more time.<\/p>\n
Best to read the poet out loud, \u00a0with pauses. \u00a0Have a blest new work week.<\/p>\n
john st sj<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Post:\u00a0 LAS MANOS<\/strong><\/p>\n I’ll never forget the scent that perfumed Abuelita\u2019s hands Abuelito\u2019s hands were heavy. These were the manos that raised and fed me, Viewed as cheap, hired extra hands So eventually these manos, my manos, Maybe my hands have never known the sting that comes from repeatedly Pero when I look at my hands,<\/p>\n I see all the pain and the sacrificio it took for them to look that way.<\/p>\n Karina Varela<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tom Florek, s.j. has long served as a rich\u00a0source of powerful poetry, primarily from Central American and Mexican poets; he\u00a0sent this to me over the weekend. \u00a0 Exquisite, as I read it. \u00a0I am inclined to run Tom\u2019s cover paragraph … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2021\/02\/Hands.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nPalmolive dish soap with a hint of Cloro
\nScrubbing
\neverything from countertops to toilets and showers
\nWringing
\nmops to clean up spills of children that were not always her own
\nHolding
\nonto her faded rosary from several mornings and evenings spent
\nPraying
\nfor the forgiveness of the heavy pecados of the whole world.<\/p>\n
\nThick and calloused from the years he spent working in the labor picking
\nanything from
\ncotton in Tejas to sugar beets in \u201cMeechigan.\u201d
\nWhen Abuelita asks him to bring in nopales from the yard so she can make
\nsome nopalitos
\ncon frijolitos for dinner, he\u2019d go out and pick them
\nwith his bare manos,
\nunable to feel the needles of the nopal pierce his worn russet skin.<\/p>\n
\nthe manos that helped feed a nation who acknowledged their existence with
\nwords and
\nphrases like \u201cwetback\u201d or \u201cbeaner\u201d and \u201cSpeak English, you\u2019re in America,\u201d
\nwith signs on restaurant windows and gasolineras that read \u201cNo dogs or
\nMexicans allowed.\u201d
\nA nation who worked them to exhaustion, treating them as a commodity to be
\nexploited.<\/p>\n
\nEstas manos worked tirelessly so my hands
\ncould hold a pencil and write
\n\u201cimportant\u201d things
\nso my back could carry a backpack filled with libros and a head full of sue\u00f1os
\nso that I could be seen as worth more than just my hands
\nso that I could be seen as a person.<\/p>\n
\nwould have the opportunity to hold a diploma with my name on it.<\/p>\n
\nsticking my hands
\nin Cloro or the developed layers of protection needed in order to be numb to
\nthe world
\naround me unwilling to acknowledge my humanity.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n