Dom Helder Camara
at the Nuclear Test Site

Dom Helder, octagenarian wisp
of human substance arrived from Brazil, 
raises his arms and gazes toward a sky pallid with heat, to implore
“Peace!”

           --then waves a “goodbye for now”
to God, as to a compadre.
“The Mass is over, go in peace
to love and serve the Lord”: he walks 
down with the rest of us to cross
the cattle-grid, entering forbidden ground
where marshals wait,with their handcuffs.

After hours of waiting,
penned into two wire-fenced enclosures, sun
climbing to cloudless zenith, till everyone
has been processed, booked, released to trudge
one by one up the slope to the boundary line
back to a freedom that’s not so free, 
we are all reassembled. We form
two circles, one contained in the other, to dance, 
clockwise and counterclockwise 
like children in Duncan’s vision. 
But not to the song of ashes, of falling: 
we dance in the unity that brought us here,
instinct pulls us into the ancient 
rotation, symbol of continuance. 
Light and persistent as tumbleweed, 
but not adrift, Dom Helder, too, 
faithful pilgrim, dances,
dances at the turning core.

Denise Levertov

return to 6/09 CPF Newsletter