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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 Gods most favorite thing to do
And at last, I imagined
that the best of Gods hours were measured by a mothers
heartbeat and wrapped around the holiness of her hearts
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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