A Plain Song For Comadre Analysis

Though the unseen may vanish, though insight

     fails

And doubter and downcast saint

Join in the same complaint,

What holy things were ever frightened off

By a fly's buzz, or itches, or a cough?

Harder than nails



They are, more warmly constant than the sun,

At whose continual sign

The dimly prompted vine

Upbraids itself to a green excellence.

What evening, when the slow and forced

     expense

Of sweat is done,



Does not the dark come flooding the straight

     furrow

Or filling the well-made bowl?

What night will not the whole

Sky with its clear studs and steady spheres

Turn on a sound chimney?  It is seventeen

     years

Come tomorrow



That Bruna Sandoval has kept the church

Of San Ysidro, sweeping

And scrubbing the aisles, keeping

The candlesticks and the plaster faces bright,

And seen no visions but the thing done right

>From the clay porch



To the white altar.  For love and in all weathers

This is what she has done.

Sometimes the early sun

Shines as she flings the scrubwater out, with a

     crash

Of grimy rainbows, and the stained studs flash

Like angel-feathers.





Submitted by Elizabeth Curry

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