|
POETRY
Harbingers
It is the sort of gray, raw February day when you
know in your bones that the fine, cold rain will turn to snow,
that Aprils flowers are still a long way off.
Once, on such a
day, walking home from work, I heard great twittering and, looking up,
saw bare arms of a ginko tree adorned with robins, the jewelry of
hope.
-- Bonnie Thurston Wheeling, W.V.
Celestial Favor
last night, I asked God for an answer, a sign of
approval that my step was sure, my intent pure, anything would do,
I said
this morning, there is a chicken at the winter
feeder on the railing of the deck, a plump white chicken of dazed
demeanor, holding her own amidst the jays and mourning doves
squabbling and feasting in the twelve-below freeze
what farm is
missing her, I wonder, what providence blew her here?
she roosts
atop the feeder like a feathered weathervane, cocks her head at me as
I stare in disbelief, You called? she asks
I know God
sends the portents we crave in our neediness, each with meaning for
the one disposed -- a flurry of doves, the whisper of an
angel, bedside visits from the Little Flower or St. Anthony, glowing in
the dark, God himself, to a holy few
to me he sends a
chicken, a befuddled chicken, who, like me, suffers a deficiency of
direction. I deduce I am dealing with a prankster.
-- Ethel Pochocki Brooks, Maine
Welcoming the Dark
Bedroom window sunset: a biblical glow, yellow
rays like the fingers of God poking holes in the hills, filling them
with liquid gold.
I run for the camera. Over my shoulder, yellows
metamorphose into rush-ahead pinks. No film.
In a drawer, earthbound
fingers dredge through underwear and jewels for a small black cartridge
to buzz and spin in the camera like a bluebottle trapped in a
window.
Light dims my dash around the corner, flings my fired feet
over the wooden stile. I feel for the camera, then lift my head,
defeated, in the dark, meet the eyes of a muscled brown mare telling me
to be still and watch the horizon self-destruct under a blood-mottled
moon.
-- Donna Pucciani Wheaton, Ill.
Visiting My Brother
In deceptive calm, through milky Plexiglas, a taut
line of fear connects us. And separates us.
No one knows the day
and hour of his death.
This blessed ignorance, Gods greatest
mercy, all creatures but the condemned enjoy.
For one man to take
it from another is sacrilege.
-- Dale Wisely Birmingham, Ala.
Poems should be previously unpublished and limited to about 50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, February 7,
2003
|
|