PEACE TO ALL

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Many people who worked with Pope Leo XIV when he was Bishop Robert Prevost of Chiclayo, Peru, couldn’t hold back tears when his election was announced on May 8. For them, it was not just a sign that God answered their prayers for a new pope who would follow Francis’s path, but also the confirmation that they had been guided by an extraordinary leader. —CRUX, May 9, 2025

Peace be with you. 

We are suffering 
the pandemic. 
We are hungry 
and we need 
to breathe. 

We need 
oxygen tanks 
in Chiclayo. 
I will get you 
the tanks. 

We need food. 

We need to walk 
the empty streets
and knock on 
every door
and leave 

food and water.

We need to bring 
the sick to hospital 
and help them to breathe. 

This is pastoral work.
This is Archbishop 
Robert Prevost,
now Pope Leo 
the Fourteenth.

Indran Amirthanayagam has just published his translation of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books, 2025). Other recent publications include Seer (Hanging Loose Press) and The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil). He is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.