A Journey to Montserrat

     The Negative Way

     This is the pilgrim, that ancient youth

     come down fevered from the dark cities

     of Europe’s irrevocable madness.  A penitent

     come down despairing from Christian cities

     brutalized by pagan rites of racial and religious

     hatred: brought forth from Christian minds plagued

     with configurations of evil, who annihilated without 

     remorse, millions of innocent human beings

     in the epiphany of evil called the Holocaust.  

     This timeworn youth come down wounded

     through the narrow gate of the Pyrenees

     along paths worn smooth by other pilgrims

     who sought configurations of grace at the shrines

     of Santiago de Compostela and Montserrat

     painfully come down this youth grown old

     with the burden of his people’s guilt in search

     of consolation and mercy in the timeless presence

     of the Black Madonna of Montserrat.