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POETRY
Sister Simone’s Song
Like a sparrow hidden
in rhododendron
her lilting
song
takes you unawares.
Smelling of lavender,
she bids
you
join in the surprise
of her fuchsia dance,
to follow her
song
behind the rainbow dragon kite
among the dunes.
The sand
sifts through
her nylon covered toes
as she lets out the kite’s
string
letting go, too, of meetings
and delegations.
Her hands wave to
the sky,
meeting the challenge of
the call in
God’s
wild
winds.
-- Janice K. Schuler
Muskegon, Mich.
Theology in a nutshell
A theology of being,
Brevity will do:
God
is,
You are,
I am,
They, too.
-- Tom Brubeck
Silver Spring, Md.
Your Cloistered Sister’s Blanket
Your cloistered sister patterned a blanket for
you,
And stitched while she prayed.
You were a family of
God-lovers.
The cloth was scarlet --
Broken intermittently
With the
round faces
Of blue and beige flowers.
It lies on my bed now,
A red
prayer quilt,
Ablaze with the solemnity
Of candles in darkened
halls,
Voices lifted in compline --
Fevered memories.
Its mouths are
sewn gracefully shut
And I would like to rip them open
Stitch by
stitch
And hear what they would say about you,
My never-met,
As they
warm me now.
-- Annabelle Moseley
Dix Hills, N.Y.
Confessions of a Western Pennsylvania
Winter
I dreamed I saw Saint Augustine
in the pristine and
glistening
new mountain snow.
It was a decent and pure coating
and he
was brimming with gratitude
for the December gift
after entirely too much
warmth and wetness.
Many have said -- then and now --
“We went
straight from summer to winter;
We never had a Fall.”
But there
he was,
Saint Augustine on vacation,
passing the afternoon behind
a
cookie-cutter condo,
romping in the soft and fine
snow, alternating
high leg
thrusts with a passionate running
of his ungloved hand
through the supple and sinuous powder.
It was indeed a powdery
mountain snow.
Coming from a tree, the wind whipped
the white dust across
his noble bearded face,
bringing nourishing hydration
and unexpected
elation.
One wonders
how the resulting guilt and shame
from this
ecstasy will compare
in the confessional
to that of a pilfered pear
or
a coupling so raw
so undebonair,
that left him well spent
but
incredibly flat.
Yes, Saint Augustine in the slippery and slick
cold
and fresh mountain snow,
must reign himself in
before he completely and
unequivocally
lets himself go.
-- Gary Ciocco
Charleroi, Pa.
Saguaro in the Desert
You are almost the age
of growing arms
like the
saguaro cactus,
embracing the world
after six decades
of just learning
to live
with extreme heat
and prickly neighbors.
There is ordained
beauty
being what you are.
Then one day the Spirit
whispers,
“Now branch out.”
-- Kathleen Gunton
Orange, Calif.
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 14,
2003
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