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POETRY
Like A Tree
May I make of my life a prayer, wearing my years like
a tree; its flocks of leaves singing their tender vibratos, its gaunt
limbs pouring blue rivers of shadow over snow. May I honor the
wounds inscribed on my body. During times of drought may I plumb the
holy water of rain in my heart.
-- Marguerite Bouvard Wellesley, Mass.
Blues
Theres a certain feeling found
in the let
go slide low touch bottom deep pool all around sound of
blues; in loose-jawed long-neck
guitars psalm-singing wails up heavenward.
The Got-Nobody
Woes World-on-my Back track Nothing-in-my-pocket-but-God and
Three-Pennies blues.
-- Sr. Kimberly M. King, RSCJ Grand Coteau, La.
A Good Hour
After playing a good hour, easing the audience into
the place we share with God, the leader, years of hard road on his
face, put his horn down, stepped to the mike, and spoke for the first
time. Instead of How yall doin tonight?
or Its good to be back in Memphis, he let enough silence
pass to make everyone squirm a bit before saying, in the voice of a
grandfather soothing the grandbabies,
Everything is gonna be all
right. Were gonna make it, God willing. Just barely, I think.
But were gonna make it.
-- Dale Wisely Birmingham, Ala.
The Moment of Decision
Maiden Teresa West, my eighth grade teacher, six
foot one, jaw assertive, resolute of step, eyes without eyelids, is
said to have smiled once (her first student, Julius Caesar),
towering down the aisle of desks, caught me passing lovely
notes to lovely Mildred,
the superintendents daughter, who
had opal eyes only for Kermit Fadness (farmer hulk of wavy
hair).
Defeated in love, disgraced before the school, banished to
the Alcatraz of the nearest cloakroom. I will be a monk.
-- Fr. Kilian McDonnell, OSB Collegeville, Minn.
Battlefield
Any war is uncivil -- Cain taking Abel to the
field, letting blood from the neck of his brother, neighbor, spew onto
the land.
Flanders poppies, and the crosses of Petersburg
are small reminders of what we make of those meadows -- hell out of
heaven.
-- Anne Heutte Washington
Poems should be previously unpublished and limited to about 50
lines and preferably typed. Please send poems to NCR POETRY, 115 E.
Armour Blvd., Kansas City MO 64111-1203. Or via e-mail to
poetry@natcath.org or fax (816) 968-2280. Please include your street
address, city, state, zip and daytime telephone number. NCR offers a
small payment for poems we publish, so please include your Social Security
number.
National Catholic Reporter, January 24,
2003
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