Exploring the Connections

Communion Song for Hildegard of Bingen

COMMUNION SONG
FOR HILDEGARD OF BINGEN

We are sunrise, sunset colors
from skin
shedding into a million particles.

We are tides
touched by the moon.

We are planets
weaving a webbed path called atoms.

We are fire and ice
our passion jungle
our indifference arctic.

We are water
flowing with our memories.

We are birds
longing for the radiant air.

We are plants
breathing, opening to light.

We are rock
until we crumble into dust.

We are life
if we but knew.

-- Sr. Lou Ella Hickman
   Corpus Christi, Texas

Published in National Catholic Reporter, December 14, 2007

Woman Standing Straight

WOMAN STANDING STRAIGHT
(Luke 13)

Stiff at first
after so much bending,
the topiary of limbs,
lungs, heart,
stretches, gulps air,
wakes to an ancient rhythm

Breath hums, throbs, fills,
swells, lifts me,
as if I were born to move free
to stand tall
kin to cypress and cedar.

Tomb walls that held me
eighteen years
split open,
become arms raised in blessing.

How will they name me now --
woman who leaps like a deer,
lifts her face to the sun,
laughs like Sara’s daughter?

From this new place
of standing straight
I meet myself
smiling
in your eyes.

Sr. Regina Bechtle, S.C.
Riverdale, N.Y.

National Catholic Reporter, August 17, 2007

For the Birds

FOR THE BIRDS

It’s not, I know, the greatest
cosmic riddle, but why
do robins, pro builders of nests
and chanteurs extraordinaires,
bathe in their drinking water? And
when leaves fall into the basin,
why don’t they lift a beak
to remove the clutter?

Maybe it’s all just for the birds,
but one person I know would be
a little more constructive,
and sing more mellowly,
if he’d put up with a decent bit
of clutter, and even have a drink
in the bathroom tub,
though not from it.

-- Fr. Walter Bado, S.J.
   Lexington, Ky

National Catholic Reporter, July 20, 2007

Authorities

Commanders, and behind them heads of state,
Are said to care for and spend sleepless nights
About the children they commit to war;
You can't help wondering, though, whether they do

Or whether, were you safely in their place
Of power, as it's not likely you would be
Nor weren't, but it's allowed to wonder,
You might not say, "Poor bastards, little shits,

They never learned their history in school,
And now they never will, and cannot know
They are the hinges on which the oily valves
Of history will balance before they close

Upon our reputations now, our fame
In aftertimes, when children will be schooled
Again in truths belatedly belied,
To shoulder our burden and their hopeless charge."

Howard Nemerov, War Stories (U. Chicago, 1987)

The Seven Deadly Sins

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

AVARICE

They say Midas
died a ruined man—
you can't eat gold,
gold can't keep you warm.
But that's just
allegory, and anyway
times have
changed. Give me
that touch.
I'll take my chances.

PRIDE

I have swallowed it
and swallowed it,
but I am like the Whale,
I can feel my Jonah
down there, waiting.
When I spit him out
everyone
will take notice.

GLUTTONY

As I finish lunch
I am thinking about
what I will eat
for dinner, so
if I give you
the smaller portion
of dessert, it is only
because I am
preoccupied. Here
let's cover it
with cream.

LUST

There is a candle lit
between my thighs.
Come, blow it out,
you with the down
so new on your face
it could be a girl's,
though I saw the muscles quicken
under your shirt,
as my pulse
quickened when
you lifted the groceries
into my car.

SLOTH

The indolent sloth
had three toes
on each front foot,
a small mammal, slow moving
and from …
South America.
Since you ask,
I would tell you which country,
but I am too tired
to look it up.

ENVY

There was a green
silk scarf with gold
around the edges
that matched
my cousin's green eyes
flecked with gold.
Mother said mine
were pure merino wool.
Mother said never mind,
boys would want to marry
girls like me.

ANGER

You tell me
that it's alright
to let it out of its cage,
though it may claw someone,
even bite.
You say that letting it out
may tame it somehow.
But loose, it may
turn on me, maul
my face, draw blood.
Ah, you think you know so much,
you whose anger is a pet dog,
its canines dull with disuse.
But mine is a rabid thing,
sharpening its teeth
on my very bones,
and I will never let it go.

Linda Pastan A Fraction of Darkness
Norton, 1985

Chez Vous

CHEZ VOUS

I don't
know

where you're
coming

from but
it's

no place
I

care to
visit

A.R. Ammons, Bosh and Flapdoodle,
(Norton, 2005)

Ultima Ratio Reagan

ULTIMA RATIO REAGAN

The reason we do not learn from history is
Because we are not the people who learned last time.

Because we are not the same people as them
That fed our sons and honor to Vietnam
And dropped the burning money on their trees,

We know that we know better than they knew,
And history will not blame us if once again
The light at the end of the tunnel is the train.

Howard Nemerov, War Stories (U. of Chicago, 1987)

Spiritual Windowshoppers

Spiritual Windowshoppers

These spiritual windowshoppers, who idly ask, How much
is that. Oh, I'm just

looking. They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love, and two eyes wet with weeping. But
these walk into a shop,

and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment, in
that shop. Where did you

go? Nowhere. What did you have to eat? Nothing much.
Even of you don't know what

you want, buy something to be part of the general exchange.
Start a huge, foolish project,

like Noah. It makes absolutely no difference what
people think of you.

    Rumi, rendered by Coleman Barks, The Soul of Rumi,
    Harper SanFrancisco, 2001

The Music We Are

The Music We Are

Did you hear that winter's over? The basil
and the carnations cannot control their

laughter. The nightingale, back from his
wandering, has been made singing master

over the birds. The trees reach out their
congratulations. The soul goes dancing

through the king's doorway. Anemones blush
because they have seen the rose naked.

Spring, the only fair judge, walks in the
courtroom, and several December thieves steal

away. Last year's miracles will soon be
forgotten. New creatures whirl in from non-

existence, galaxies scattered around their
feet. Have you met them? Do you hear the

bud of Jesus crooning in the cradle? A single
narcissus flower has been appointed Inspector

of Kingdoms. A feast is set. Listen: the
wind is pouring wine! Love used to hide

inside images: no more! The orchard hangs
out its lanterns. The dead come stumbling by

in shrouds. Nothing can stay bound or be
imprisoned. You say, "End this poem here,

and wait for what's next." I will. Poems
are rough notations for the music we are.

Rumi (rendered by Coleman Barks,
The Soul of Rumi, Harper SanFrancisco, 2001)

A Few Acres of Shiny Water

A FEW ACRES OF SHINY WATER

I guess anything gets old: being rich, yep,
pretty soon it's old—occasional pleasant

spurts of realization, then—celebrity, a big
ox in your way wherever you turn, that gets

old: having nothing to do gets old in a hurry,
going from having something to do to not being

able to find anything to do, I'll say: being
in love, oh dear, even that, about the third

month, gets old as hell, all those re-arisings:
on the bestseller list—great the first week,

also the second week; then it's every week,
expected. tedious, getting old: market up.

wow, up again, oh boy, still up, up and up,
I see, okay, really: you are finally thought

to be as good a poet as you thought—so; so
what, what is a poet: even getting old gets

old, the novelty aches and pains, surprising
and scary at first, they don't wear off but

the novelty does: finding, and trying to
find, something new gets old: find a new

risk to take, a new cliff to sail off from,
pretty soon it's a drag to get all the way to

Nepal or a Filipino trench: telling about
getting old and everything getting old gets

old, I'll tell you, it sure does …

A.R. Ammons, Bosh and Flapdoodle
(Norton, 2005)