Original Fire: Selected and New Poems

Avila

Teresa of Avila’s brother, Rodrigo, emigrated to America in 1535 and died in a fight with Natives on the banks of the Rio de la Plata.

— Footnote to The Life of Teresa of Jesus, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers

Sister, do you remember our cave of stones,

how we entered from the white heat of afternoons,

chewed seeds, and plotted one martyrdom

more cruel than the last?

You threw your brown hair back

and sang Pax Vobiscum to the imaginary guard,

a leopard on the barge of Ignatius.

Now I see you walking toward me, discalced like the poor,

as the dogwood trees come into blossom.

Their centers are the wounds of nails,

deep and ragged. The spears of heaven

bristle along the path you take,

turning me aside.

Dear sister, as the mountain grows out of the air,

as the well of fresh water

is sunk in the grinding sea,

as the castle within rises stone upon stone,

I still love you. But that is only

the love of a brother for a sister, after all,

and God has nothing to do with it.