Tonight the streets shine

Edahí and I walk hand in hand after a chance meeting on the sidewalk,

His eyes are brimming with uncontained excitement

his cousin, Lian, skips along behind after five years in the United States,

is so excited to be home discovering her pueblo mágico

not a cloud in the sky just inscrutable depth

everything drenched in a deluge of wonder 

tonight the streets shine just for her 

here and there the Milky Way peaks through 

from beyond the threadbare veil of electric light 

She asks if I speak English 

and is delighted there is someone else who shares her code. 

In the Parroquia San Pedro de los Pozos

aflame with the light centuries collected

reflecting from gold leaf and silver 

And there la Virgen del Carmen, la Fátima, San Pedro himself

And of course, el Cristo, el señor de los trabajos at the center

In this nave faith is everything

A sea of of people from the pueblo

listens to Bach on Violin

listening to Carlos Gardel

and to duet of bésame mucho in an arrangement made for the evening

Most of the women wear their hair down

Dark rivers of fathomless mystery

Even those with their tied back

carry the ancestral shroud of their ancestral origin

glowing inwardly

Salud with her two handsome sons on either side

listens attentively then her eyelids drop

a long day but she is here

Beside me Edahí plays

—the grandson of Eduardo the deceased artist

who was my friend 

coconspirator in finding wonder—

but finally says he is bored...

his grandmother, Lian and Edahí trickle 

out through the pews before the concert has ended.

Closer to the front Salud— who used to make tortillas on a woodburning comal,

and now sells the plants she cultivates—sits up tall in the space between her sons.

The Covarrubias are all present.

Those who are absent but indelibly inked on the parchment of our souls are also here

carried in on the vibrant strings of violins.

—Lorena Wolfman (Agosto 2025)