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POETRY
La Espera
Pasa el tiempo
y yo estoy
aquí
Pasa el tiempo
y el viento
violento
y yo estoy aquí
Pasa el
tiempo
como la mar
en la costa
y yo estoy
aquí
Pasa el tiempo
y las lluvias
van
y vienen
y yo estoy aquí
Pasa el tiempo
y el desierto florece
y yo estoy
aquí
Pasa el tiempo y tú
no te acuerdas
de mí
Oh mi Dios!
pasa el tiempo
y
tú no te acuerdas de mí. |
Waiting
The time passed
and I am still here
The
time passed
and the hollowing wing
and I am still here
The time
passed
as the sea over
coast line
and I am still here
The time
passed
and the rain came
and I am still here
The time
passed
and the desert bloomed
and I am still here
The time
passed
and you do not
remember me
Oh my God!
the time
passed
and you do not remember me.
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-- Leonor R. Guerrero
Winnetka, Calif.
Gardening
By nightfall, my hands weep with blisters.
My arms are
as heavy as the cartwheel
that must carry away the weeds.
I breathe
in the night air, pull
at the roots of my existence.
Starting at the
shed,
I walk circle within circle,
find prayer wheel after prayer
wheel,
some broken, some still spinning,
though one, like a bell
ringing,
sheep may safely graze.
Sheep may safely
graze.
*
Lord, I seek your solace, your
shadow.
Follow me in my chaos.
Bless my feeble attempts at
prayer.
Bless the cartwheel that carries
the stone of my
soul.
Though when graced, the stone
will make a wind sound.
Like a
poem. Like a blossom
opening for the first time.
-- Mary Ann Meade
Conshohocken, Pa.
Your Craft
(Thomas Merton, b. Jan. 31, 1915)
On her blue-mantle ocean
you journeyed in words.
You said,” She opened the seas … ”
At Gethsemani, your
wool serge
sails kept their strength
when bundled in cream
cowl and
brown cape.
Contemplation and prayer
“the wind and all the
voices
of the wood” powered your craft.
You charmed our literary
shores.
Then in 1968, Fr. Louis
you left us in a blue wake
and sailed
for home.
-- Kathleen Gunton
Orange, Calif.
A Secret Grace
Before you were you
I wondered what God thought
about
Before fingerprints marked my doors
and baseballs flew across
my yard
I wondered how God spent the hours
Before the low light of
the moon
shone upon your sleeping face
I wondered what God did at
night
But then, when you were half past six
you asked me if I
knew
God’s most favorite thing to do
And at last, I imagined
that the best of God’s hours
were measured by a mother’s
heartbeat
and wrapped around the holiness of
her heart’s
affections
And there, with me day and night
God rejoices
in the
secret grace of motherhood.
-- Pat McDonough
Westbury, N.Y.
Rosary
Sometime the urge
is too great. I search
the
tortuous back roads
until I find the solitude to
sit quietly in my truck
with
my beads and my God …
… and once there I sink
into
a soft labial sibilance:
each bead round
and worn and
wonderful
between thumb and finger;
each touch and tug pulling
me
deeper into green
gardens of blossoming prayer,
into the mysterious
heart
of my God …
-- John E. Hopkins
Whitman, Mass.
National Catholic Reporter, February 9,
2001
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