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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
There’s 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 y’all doin’ tonight?
or
It’s 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.
We’re gonna make it, God willing.
Just barely, I think.
But we’re 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 superintendent’s 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Poems should be previously unpublished and limited to about 50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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