The Dark Hours

I

In San Antonio de Quemado in New Mexico,

When the sound of snow water

Is heard in a hundred valleys,

When on the cumbres

Eaglets with mate-hungry eyes

Sit searching the larkspur-colored horizons,

In San Antonio de Quemado

They keep the Dark Hours in remembrance.

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San Antonio was a pueblo once,

A walled and terraced pueblo,

But the Querechos sacked and burnt it.

Then came the Spanish men riding long-tailed elk

To the clank of iron clothing.

Then came the Brown-gowns bearing saving images,

Carved and lacquered vultos-

San Antonio for Quemado-

Whom for the sake of the Spanish guns against the

Querechos

The Quemadefios kissed and accepted.

Still to be seen there in the mud-walled

Church of his dedication,

Between Our Lady of Innocence

And San Miguel of the Broken Toes-

So hard he stamped upon the devil

In Quemado.

Who knows when the name of the town was lost;

Or the Tano blood in the blood of Lopez, Vigil, Garcia;

Or why Maximilian died against a wall;

Or the Americanos came

And shut up the Querechos in reservations?

Only the years remained, and the vultos,

Somewhat chipped as to lacquer,

Serene by the unserved altars

Through the Dark Hours of New Mexico.

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Surely the Saints-Isidro the Ploughman,

Santiago riding hard for God and New Mexico,

And that Moon-footing Lady

Who from the rocks of Tepeyac

Brought roses to bloom for Juan Diego,

Worked on Los Hermanos Penitentes,

Till out of their dark hours broke,

As the white fire breaks from the wild plum thickets

Along the creek borders,

Man's ancient incurable passion of expiation.

From the first Wednesday in Lent to Good Friday,

Among the little towns of the Sangre de Cristo-

Questa, Talpa, Ranchos de Taos,

Cundio, Chimayo, Rio Media

(But I chose San Antonio de Quemado)-

When on the Loma the Lenten twilights

Are brittle and gleaming,

Icy rims on the pool of darkness, :

From Prado, Placito and Llano

Two and two go the brothers

To the windowless low morada;

Pablo the goat-herd and Pedro the woodman,

Julio home from the mines, Felipe and Juan from the

ranchos.

There is no one now

Who is not worth something

Since now Christ has died,

Sing Los Hermanos Penitentes,

Come in on your knees and endure

The blood of his discipline.

Two and two go the brothers, on the Rastre de Sangre,

To the slither of crosses dragged in the dust

And the steady fall of the flagels,

While the Compañeros sing, and Vicente,

Whose side is sealed with the bloodier patriot rites,

Carries the lantern.

He was the best man

That ever was on earth,

Let us now heartily endure

The stripes of His discipline!

Sing the Penitentes.

Iv

What way shall the humble walk

In the cloud of their own unknowing

But the way of the Ancient Good,

Not understood but felt

In the stripes of mimic anguish.

Aside in the orchards

The sap of the pruned bough drips,

The ewes in the lambing pens

Shudder the way of life giving life.

And the women awake in their beds,

Hearing the flutes go by;

Eerie with nameless guilt

Persuasive of grief's assuagement,

Cross themselves and remember

How nothing comes to birth but by pain and endurance,

And pray to San Antonio de Quemado

For the spirit's safe deliverance.