A Journey to Montserrat
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, annihilating without
remorse millions of innocent human beings
in the epiphany of evil called the Holocaust.
This time-worn 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 Madonna of Montserrat.