this is against the grain here, but I still think one act of heroism is worth this little piece:
Deporting Jésus
by Scott Simpson
September - December, 2007
Two days across the desert
alone,
only eight hours more
to Tucson and work—
daily bread for four children
back home.
Generational son of brick layers,
Jésus Cordova had journeyed north
from the village of Magdalena de Kino
where in 1688 Jesuit Eusebio Kino
established Mission
Santa Maria Magdalena,
teaching the natives the art
of brick laying, and the words
of a carpenter
spent on outcasts.
Then suddenly, among the screwbean mesquite and
patches of arrow weed, Jésus meets
nine year old Christopher,
miles from any town
and night falling.
November 25th had deposited
a minivan at the bottom of a crumbling cliff
300 feet from the tight curve, misjudged,
the boy’s mother alive, but dying.
On a Thanksgiving night,
Christopher climbed for help
and stumbled upon Jesus
who shared what he had,
his coat, a fire
and the only common word
that bridged the barrier:
accidente.
Christopher is alive
because Jésus Cordova stayed with him
till dawn on the wrong side,
Jésus, the brick layer America rejected.
Editor's note: Illegal Neighbor?
Last week a Mexican man journeyed over the Sonoma Desert in Southern Arizona to find work when he came upon a nine-year-old boy alone, cold, and lost.
An illegal alien in the United States, Manuel Jésus Cordova Soberanes, had a dilemma. Help the boy and risk getting caught and deported or move on to find work? The boy, a United States citizen named Christopher Buztheitner and his mother, 45-year-old Dawn Alice Tomko, had been in the area camping, according to Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada, quoted in an AP wire story. Tomko lost control of the car and it went down a canyon 300 feet.
The boy survived the accident and Cordova found the boy wandering in the desert with a mirror from the vehicle and his dog. "I am a father of four, and for that I stayed. I could have never left him, never," Cordova told an AP reporter. The two walked together fourteen hours until hunters found them and called authorities to help.
The boy was reunited with family members and Cordova was taken back to Mexico.
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