For forty days and forty nights
you wander in the wilderness
and face temptation
of body, heart, mind and spirit.

You seek the land of beasts
and demons, going deep within.
In the dark corners of the psyche,
in the liminal wild,

you wait and watch
as figures of dream and myth appear.
You converse with each, ever respectful,
and befriend your inner denizens

with morning joy and evening song,
whirling the stars onto the night’s dance floor.
For you are now transfigured, transparent.
All you have brought into light

join you and live within you.
You are now a resplendent city,
housing beings of light and
loving into neighbor what once seemed enemy.

Tina Datsko de Sánchez serves as Poet in Residence at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach. Tina is the author of the bilingual poetry book The Delirium of Simón Bolívar.