Poetry by Pascual Antonio Arias Vélez

An Angel in the Trash

In my long daily routine
digging through the waste,
facing life’s bitter taste
without forgetting a tune
of prayer, beneath the moon
I search for what might feed
this hunger and this need
wrapped in the street’s torment,
marginal and spent…
I feel death’s steps proceed.

Dragging a battered cart,
my only property there,
seeking to kill despair
that tears my soul apart…
weed becomes my healing art,
It dulls my aching gut,
It lifts me from the rut,
So I forget my woes,
The pain the street bestows—
my cursed life is shut.

One night without the haze,
amidst garbage and decay,
close to some ferns that lay
cold in freezing malaise,
I mustered a bit of bravery
When I saw something stir…
a baby, just a blur!
Abandoned there alone,
Death’s shadow nearly grown
His cry began to purr.

Like a fragile little rose
I found a divine sign,
a diamond, pure, benign,
that from heaven softly glows.
Life gave me this, who knows?
A conscience I must weigh…
Is this my guiding ray?
A ghost I dream in vain?
Or balm to soothe my pain
On this forsaken way?

I raised him up with care
and wrapped him in my poncho,
Then took him to my sister
Who rents a room somewhere
So he could rest in there.
She gave him a small shirt
She also nursed her kid, alert.
“There’s enough for two,” she smiled,
“God’s blessing in this child
What joy love can assert.”

A challenge from fate’s hand
that deepened my devotion,
made me quit the potion
That once ruled my command.
Even my dog, once banned,
returned without a fight.
I’d kicked him out one night
while lost in drugged despair—
Now I feel his loving stare
I yield to his light.

Some years have passed since then
He now pushes my old cart.
He studies with his heart
and climbs where few have been.
With struggles now and then,
He became the top in class,
won a scholarship at last
to enter university,
reach a life of dignity,
and leave behind the past.

He became the town’s physician
And our misfortune ceased.
We recall that blessed feast—
that June day and its vision—
a stranger, yet a mission.
We gave him all our love,
his thanks rose high above.
He fills us with delight,
no hunger, pain, or fright—
He heals like stars above.

Today, a woman arrives
at the ER in distress.
Her heart under duress,
she fights just to survive.
She needs surgery to stay alive,
an urgent case, no less.
It’s life or death, we guess.
May luck be at her side
where only hope can bide…
Since charity’s our dress.

A mole upon her chin—
The doctor bears it too!
In both, a shared virtue
and broad forehead as kin.
“Your dad,” she says, “was a sinner.
He told me to let you go,
to throw you down below
If I choose to give you breath—
He’d vanish or bring death…
I cried, I loved him so.”

He left you in the trash
so he wouldn’t see you die.
His life was one long cry
of cruelty, cold and brash—
His soul turned into ash.
He landed behind bars,
yet gave me fleeting stars.
Death took him in a fight,
a vulture in the night…
But I loved him, scars and all, despite.

‘Come, mother, I forgive you!’
I have a family now,
with love to disavow
the hate you once lived through.
Your suffering is true.
You deserve a queen’s crown
for being beaten down.
There’s sweetness in your soul,
I’ll help to make you whole—
‘You’re not to blame at all!’

Copyright@Pascual Antonio Arias Vélez