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POETRY
Gathered Wisdom
(A prayer for Africa) The first part of a six-part
poem
I. Ancestors Our loved ones our life and
hope the gathered wisdom accumulated in the soil the land the
earth the animals the plants the sky The spirit of our
people shared linking us calling us forth tis the ancestors
in the voices of us all in the children and their dark
faces receptacles of light shining forth big, gleaming teeth in
fantastic smiles joyous waves and buoyant shouts seen
shared and experienced only if we are present striving
connecting and hoping against all in diverse unity, with our God of
small joys.
-- Jim Petkiewicz Oaxaca, Mexico
Vigil
I gather them up at the frontiers of sleep, lift the
children out of newsprint;
the spindly Sudanese baby, a whole
countrys famine echoing in his scream.
I stroke his forehead,
my hands spill oranges and bread. On the back pages
where AIDS in
South Africa is rendered in three column inches, I open the door
to
the rickety house of a girl who tended her parents into their
deaths.
Relatives have moved in, and treat her like a servant. I
become a tree
standing over that house, my leaves whispering through
walls.
-- Marguerite Bouvard Wellesley, Mass.
For a Friend in Need of Hope
That spring the lake rose and rose in mist and fog
a fragile morning that, if frightened, might take its leave. Nothing
moved and it lingered. On the shore a great blue heron paused
waiting, I suppose, for frog or snake or fish or, like Elijah in his
cave, hearing the voice of silence. Solitary, stilled, balanced on one
leg he bid the morning stay.
-- Carole Garibaldi Rogers Morristown, N.J.
The First Crocus
In March amid the blow and cold, up through the
layered leaves dark mold a golden crocus blooms alone. Distilled from
earth, rain, snow and sun, appointment kept, the cycle run a Chalice
lifts and winters gone.
-- Sr. Martha Wickham, ASC Red Bud, Ill
2001 in Poetry
2000 in Poetry
1999 in Poetry
Poems should be previously unpublished and limited to about 50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, March 23,
2001
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