The Nazarene Cross and the Wolf

a) The doves and the shouts












God forsaken child is born for us among the sorghum
why do the matrons of the hamlet cross their hearts in front of the sylent bonfires?

bonfires lit in houses of stone

ranchos of adobe and waysted love, mesolítico, pampásico.




Who is his mother , no one knows
who is his father, the sibilant wind of the Pampas
the Morning Star Lucifer, perhaps.

God forsaken baby is just born for us among the sorghum:

his body ought to be exposed all night long to the blizzards of the open south, someone whispers

to purify his original cross, to alleviate his future descent to the Hells

those Hells, so feared.


As the subpolar night advances on its surreal course, gray wild dogs and Mandinga omniscient visit the tender body in dreams, passing by like curtains of gauze:


Beelzebub, Divine Light on the Patagonic rocks
presence in the corners where no one dwells
father and godfather of the creature

perhaps


as the subpolar night advances on its surreal course.





ii.

Raised by Ña Prono, matron and widow whose husband died without sons, the child of the wind raised is

his childhood goes by
Nazarene he christened was
because that is his given name

to purify his original cross, to alleviate his future descent to the Hells
those Hells, so feared.


And under the presiding image of the Virgin Mary baptized he was
with limpid water of steel and silver
in a faded church in the middle of the Pampas
exposed to Mandinga-Satan, owner of those immensities.




iii.

Runs Nazarene on the camps of soy and barley, yellow-ished by the dry winds of December
runs and plays, as if he were trying to shun the curse of his days


Luzbel Godfather observes him playing
dressed like rich gaûcho, argentine coins encrusted in his belt, pura plata
espuelas of gold, limpid

the Devil Father watches him running through the camps replete with the purest wheat
from the distance of the absent father

absent father.




iv.

Arrived in his post-adolescence Nazarene is, the age of the perpendicular discernment

able to decide between a Diablo Gaucho and a Christ from Israel.

And Mephisto observes his son Nazarene, always from the distance

like a suggested figure who reminisces, but never shows himself openly

like a blurry detail from a past life.




v.

Lobizón our child was born
because the 7th son of unknown mother he was, the poor
because the lupine strength runs in his blood
and he only roams in the summer nights, pursuing a moon that never can be reached.

Human beast, animal, son of the Devil, hijo de Mandinga that only may be killed with a facón blessed in water under the presiding image of the Christ of Israel.

And the facón must be made of the purest argent

because he is trapped in the madneess of his crystal nightmare
his life.




vi.

The military man pursues him through the flat prairies, combed by oligocene winds
facón in hand, the milico runs behind the Nazarene child, the Nazarene beast:

is he a dog, a man? Or a hog?

The irrational full moon from above doesn't respond, just illuminates this blue theatre, like an impotent disc replete of rain

The military man reaches the beast, and sinks the cold facón in the lupine heart: the beast screams, guttural noises mixed with human words escape from his throat

is now, when under the lunar panic, the facón shines silvery and bloody

because the black beast from another world had to die

but is now when Nazarene envisions his love, Griseta, she smiles blonde in his mind, like a vision of fractured mirrors


but...now the populace of the hamlet arrives to see, filling the air with their screams, and the matrons, and the rural prefect, and las cristianías, and the priests and the holy water:

from the huge, black and bleeding heart, opened like a rotten bofe, 10 doves fly under the frigid light of Selene.












b) Nazarene in the Hells