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POETRY
Harbingers
It is the sort of gray,
raw February day
when you
know
in your bones
that the fine, cold rain
will turn to snow,
that April’s flowers
are still a long way off.
Once, on such a
day,
walking home from work,
I heard great twittering
and, looking up,
saw
bare arms of a ginko tree
adorned with robins,
the jewelry of
hope.
-- Bonnie Thurston
Wheeling, W.V.
Celestial Favor
last night,
I asked God
for an answer,
a sign of
approval
that my step was sure,
my intent pure,
anything would do,
I said
this morning,
there is a chicken
at the winter
feeder
on the railing of the deck,
a plump white chicken
of dazed
demeanor,
holding her own
amidst the jays
and mourning doves
squabbling and feasting
in the twelve-below freeze
what farm is
missing her,
I wonder,
what providence blew her here?
she roosts
atop the feeder
like a feathered weathervane,
cocks her head at me
as
I stare in disbelief,
“You called?” she asks
I know God
sends
the portents we crave
in our neediness,
each with meaning
for
the one disposed --
a flurry of doves,
the whisper of an
angel,
bedside visits from the Little Flower
or St. Anthony, glowing in
the dark,
God himself,
to a holy few
to me he sends a
chicken,
a befuddled chicken,
who, like me, suffers
a deficiency of
direction.
I deduce I am dealing
with a prankster.
-- Ethel Pochocki
Brooks, Maine
Welcoming the Dark
Bedroom window sunset:
a biblical glow, yellow
rays
like the fingers of God
poking holes in the hills,
filling them
with liquid gold.
I run for the camera.
Over my shoulder, yellows
metamorphose into rush-ahead pinks.
No film.
In a drawer, earthbound
fingers
dredge through underwear and jewels
for a small black cartridge
to buzz and spin in the camera
like a bluebottle trapped in a
window.
Light dims my dash around the corner,
flings my fired feet
over the wooden stile.
I feel for the camera,
then lift my head,
defeated, in the dark,
meet the eyes of a muscled brown mare
telling me
to be still and watch
the horizon self-destruct
under a blood-mottled
moon.
-- Donna Pucciani
Wheaton, Ill.
Visiting My Brother
In deceptive calm,
through milky Plexiglas,
a taut
line of fear connects us.
And separates us.
No one knows
the day
and hour
of his death.
This blessed ignorance,
God’s greatest
mercy,
all creatures but the condemned enjoy.
For one man
to take
it from another
is sacrilege.
-- Dale Wisely
Birmingham, Ala.
Poems should be previously unpublished and limited to about 50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, February 7,
2003
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