He lived between the stars and indigence,
this youngest son of Catherine Alvarez.
Her hope–to make a weaver of him–was
firmly rooted in poverty and common sense.
Straining to ply the loom, his shoulders tense,
fingers ineptly handling warp and weft, his
mind refusing all attempts to master splices,
Juan’s heart ached for something else. The immanence
of God possessed him. The youth of Old Castile
would weave a finer fabric of his years.
Unraveling the skein of himself onto the loom
of God, he chose the weft of love made real
in the pattern of the crucified, over-shot his fears
and wove his life anew in Carmel’s weaving-room.
Robin Stratton, ocd