Corcovado juts its hunchback granite
from Tijuca Mountains toward heaven.
Solid, unflinching, lifts Cristo Rentor
to God above and to his people below.
I can see a little better—his outstretched
arms, his towering stature piercing the veil
of clouds—that the blur in his eyes is not
one of disappointment but his mercy falling
as gentle rain. The forest never sleeps
and also cries for redemption, the soul
of the Amazon, the trees of life-giving
air. They have also shed their blood
chlorophyll green full of oxygen for us.
Christ the Redeemer is not cross
at us. His continued love is puzzling
but embraced by some. Others don't
yet understand the miracles, a sign
for us, the peculiar ones who find it
easier to believe in ghosts. But who
is to say what is abnormal when we
are blinded by our own conceit?
Who will offer prayer, those words
as if the sweet perfume of flowers?
It doesn't matter because forgiveness
precedes us.
John C. Mannone has poems in Artemis, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, and others. He was awarded a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature and served as the celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). His full-length collections are Disabled Monsters (Linnet’s Wings Press, 2015), Flux Lines (Linnet’s Wings Press, 2022), Song of the Mountains (Middle Creek Publishing, 2023, nominated for the Weatherford Award), and Sacred Flute (Iris Press, 2024). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and other journals. A physics professor, he teaches mathematics and creative writing in a Knoxville, Tennessee high school. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com | https://www.facebook.com/jcmannone/