|
POETRY
Rouault, St. Luke and Emmaus
One artist complements the other. Luke portrays the
scene, Rouault provides a key detail. Disciples -- two of them -- are
on their way to Emmaus, one named Cleopas; the other, no name -- clue
enough to see in No-Name, No-One, another one of those anonymous women
Luke proclaims as part of the Good News. So, Rouault would then be
right on target, putting beside good Cleopas a woman. Why not his wife?
Why not that Mary who stood at the foot of Jesus cross, whom John
identifies as wife of Clopas? Coincidence? Or deeper truth? Woman and
man, together, lost, disconsolate, questioning, searching, open to the
Stranger opening up, for both, the meaning of it all.
-- Jesuit Fr. Walt Bado Lexington, Ky.
Reversals and the Recent Acts of God For Father Oscar
S. Vasquez-Munoz
Ordained May 18, 1991, Lake Charles, La. Died June 18,
1991, Bogotá, Colombia
One month after you lay face down on our cathedral
floor, you died far away in your homeland hospital for lack of a
respirator. He died in a country of trouble, wag tongues with
little taste for holiness.
The morning you died in
Bogotá, lightning struck us in Louisiana, the cathedral bells rang
randomly for an hour. No one could figure out their electronic
brain. Next door the Court House asked, Can no one reverse this
latest act of God? The bells have heavy tongues yet beyond the
metal rim of time are soundless. The ordination you delayed to be
fluent has passed -- no need now for words.
In your native
land, you are laid out, face up, eyes closed to us and covered with
the earth you came from, earth richer now for your passage, but facing
the heavens you came among us as missionary to open.
-- Leo Luke Marcello Lake Charles, La.
From Christ In Stone
A cypress and the Good Shepherd mark the cemetery
where we carried your last earthly smile. Looking for your grave, I get
lost. From the stone statue I gather direction, but light and weather
change: The sky from clean blue to chalk, whose meaning is erased by a
breeze; wind turns the pages faster these days. I walk to wear off the
world. I expect you at my feet, to walk right up to you. There is
copper curling of roses around your years: 1921-1997. I invert a vase and
place more. Someday, my daughter will walk and pray for me in this last
knowing. A place hard to come to and difficult to believe.
--Kathleen Gunton Orange, Calif.
Mouse Tale
Little by little now, or in a rush, things leave me.
Giving a little wave as if theyll see me tomorrow. Only you, with
our thousand ties, denied me that. So I conjure up a smile; it beams out
of somewhere and finds me when it can.
My heart grows wider,
flatter like the uncircled earth, with these departures. I didnt
know that walking through a desert could feed you so, thrust up cliffs
and mesas beyond range of cathedrals, lead to canyon rims where you can
peer at cornfields and horses, even birds with an eagles
eyes.
There is the tale of a mouse who wanted to climb a
mountain. He gave one eye to a dying buffalo and crossed the plain
beneath him, then another to save a wolf, and rode him blind to the
mountaintop, where an eagle seized him, then far below he saw wolf,
plain, buffalo. He had become the eagle.
Death can mean that when we
are eaten by what we love.
-- Justine Buisson Miami
Golden
clear curtains yellow flowers nectarines
this morning heaven plays its love song
and it rains.
-- Fr. Conrado Beloso Golden, British Columbia
The Day The Fish Danced By
I forgot cares that weigh to sit long breaking
barriers of time to see with awesome wonder a cosmic
choreography.
The irresistible rainbow arch roseate and beryl
blue propelled from neath a quiet lake where each
piscanes tour en lars a ballast ballet make; the
finny fandango splendor-splashed to shed prismatic dew, enhancing
pirouettes and grands jetés they danced.
My
soul lept with them. My spirit soared beyond the aspen-autumn
gold to sky where all are one the day the fish danced
by.
-- Pat Mings Idaho Falls, Idaho
Poems should be 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, November 5,
1999
|
|