Anjos/Angels
In 2012, the year my mother died, I published a collection of fragments, short, free-form verses to celebrate her life and convey how much I missed her. I paired the fragments with photographs of cemetery angels that I had been taking . This work inspired me to take more pictures and write more fragments. These became the basis for my one-person play Marília, and for another project, Fragments, a collection of angel photos and text.
Pinto, R.M. (2012). Anjos, 3, pp. 49-51. New York City: Chelsea Station
I was ten months old when my sister Marília was buried at the top of a foothill in the children’s section of Cemitério da Saudade, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Marília was almost three when she died. She was buried under a túmulo, a large oblong white marble box sitting on top of the earth upon which lay a small vase and a picture frame.
The vase contained white chrysanthemums. The frame encased her photograph, reflecting a serenity I would forever try to emulate so as to become my sister. Between vase and frame, an angel stood with sharp wings to protect my baby sister’s soul and shelter her remains, buried deep in Brazilian soil.
With my mother, I visited my sister and her anjo as often as I could, whenever my mother could get away from my other siblings. Marília and I were the youngest of eight. I became attached to the anjo who was just like me, a little bit boy, a little bit girl.
Years passed, I became thirty-seven, the age my mother was when she lost her daughter. During a visit to Brazil, she told me, “Heavy rains destroyed Marília’s home and washed away your anjo.” My mother understood what that angel meant to me. Since I was little, I talked to and heard from my sister through that angel, and, in the silence, I heard the voice of God. I miss my sister. I look for our anjo wherever I go. As I travel I speak with angels and think of my sister. When I am in their presence, I know am with her.
Olšany Cemetery, Prague, Czech Republic
Have you seen her?
Looking down from where you are, can you see the abyss?
There I have no shelter to sit under, no cushion to sit upon; only thorns and crosses and seashells crushed by feet
They crush my throat, cutting the air for which I gasp… feet stepping over my body and the little girl inside me
Do you know who she is?
She is Marília, my sister, my mate
We’ve become one and together we feel sensations … from head to toe
Nipples, hands, and groin
She is the only girl I am close to this way
Upon her departure, part of me began to die
Our deaths are different and linked
One of us is buried beneath a shelterless sky without a blanket or a rosary to cling to
So we cling to each other in order to stay warm
Without her, I’ve often clung to men to feel alive
Have you seen the girl inside me / outside me / around me?
She is Marília my baby sister I miss so much…
Fallen Anjo
Fallen for being beautiful, Anjo stands proud and high up against the sky away from passer byes and mundane joggers unaware of the beauty above
He is an angel not unlike the one on my sister’s túmulo, but Anjo is bigger and will not disappear for lack of funds or heavy rain… He will linger after we are all gone
He will reunite us as angels do, and will entice us as angels do, and we’ll surrender to his seduction and beauty and fall to our knees before him and hope in vain to be taken… gathered up and transported
But Anjo will ignore us for we are not of his league nor have we the attributes to achieve his greatness. I don’t, I know… I never felt I could or deserved…
So many men have I made into angels since Marília died; momentary higher powers… ephemeral enemies
I often have submitted to Anjo and joined his league by falling
Have you?
Ángel Caído (Fallen Angel), El Retiro Park, Madrid, Spain
São João Batista Cemetery, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
If I had one
When autumn comes all that seems safe falls
Hope vanishes
Yet I hope to see things clearer
To befriend darkness
So that cold weather won’t make me sore
In my sleep I find fragments
They’ve fallen long ago
One by one
I find my mother looking thin with flowers around her bed
Here and there a small person smiles
Broad, open mouth and a concerned frown
Lab coats hide their bodies wrinkled and sad
Trying to wash the dream
And welcome daylight
I get up at five
To walk the park
Follow old steps on a new path
Picking up leaves
Each and every one
One in the forest night
In the middle
As the earth opens her mouth
No need to pull me in
So warm and wet it must be within
Like my pussy would feel like
If one was mine
I go in, now and again, the earth around us
Marília, my dreams and leaves of trees I hugged in summer
The place I must go before all that matters falls to the ground
God will help
I wasn’t well
Her legs were red and scary even before she joined us in Rio
We took her to the hospital
They found a blood clot in her leg...
She seemed well … no pain … as if nothing was happening
The clot could break anywhere: brain / lung / limb
It could kill / paralyze / make her more forgetful
I dread the day she no longer knows who I am
Do I exist if she does not know me?
She was taken to the hospital from the airport
It took days to realize I was falling apart
I was strong with her / in front of her / for her only
She was vulnerable taking my breath away
She not knowing where she was. I was in Hell
Was this the goodbye trip?
I felt unwell, closer to my mother than ever before:
Fused in changed closeness primal tender visceral
Knowingly she said, “God will help us come together pray wait and see"
Ajuda Cemetery, Lisbon, Portugal
Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, England
Letting go
It’s strange to feel alone here in this place I’ve been before gone from old to young ash to ash dust to dust from far and yet so close to see decay and beauty of living life evolving here and there with no difference whether it is prague or rio or park or river or cemetery I always end up here in the arms of angels …
It’s strange to wake up clean up look in the mirror see the difference go walk here realizing I am not alone notice the difference again see what time does to me you the rest of us with eyes too busy to see beyond wrinkles disease disorder disinfected bodies in need to know we will end up here in the arms of angels …
It is stranger still to be here now with my mother and my sister all that matters the memories worth keeping to confront terror want fear desire horror of knowing I will as I did for my sister watch my mother disappear into the earth her body purified by flames burned to ashes joining Marília’s remains as mother and sister blow the night air into my lungs welcoming me to the arms of angels …
***
On March 2, 2012, my mother joined my sister in Cemitério da Saudade. I looked for an angel to adorn the túmulo under which both now lay. I did not find one. Saudade means to miss someone or something, to miss a time in one’s life or anything that one regards highly, appreciates, honors, loves, and wishes to see again and again to rejoin to fuse with to become one. To have saudade is to miss those who are far or no longer alive.
