FROM A WOMAN’S LIFE

FROM A WOMAN’S LIFE

What Mary knew was just

enough for the usual day:

pull water, flint fire, bake

bread, smile, pray

The dark orations, sleep, wake,

wait.  When pain honed a nerve,

when birth or dying clotted

an hour, she leaned to the curve

of living, resilient to fear,

laughter, suffering.

Partings are a little death.

Each one’s journey is a thing

wholly without precedent.

She looked at the sky

for compass.  None.  She, too,

created a road to travel by.

Sister Maura SSND

Sign.  May 1982

Used with permission

BORN OF MARY

BORN OF MARY

God’s words threaded her ear bones,

intricate as a folk tale journey;

God’s Word in embryo – alive

in her womb.  Everything made him:

soil her sandals slapped, water,

mix of sunlight, dusk, strength, fear.

Honey, fish, bread, memories.  Fear

and desire interlock in women whose bones

are supple with life.  Even well-water

Mary looked into held the nine-month journey

He was making.  Everything verified him.

The wholeness of her brought Him alive.

He came.  Helpless.  Small collarbone alive

as his eyes.  O his hunger.  His fear –

how she felt it.  When she nursed him,

the pull and suck of his mouth, the tiny bones

of maleness astonished her prayer.  His journey

into time – absurd, boyish – held off the water

of any red sea from her passage.  Other water.

wakening as dawn, called muteness alive

in its blessing.  The twelfth year: a journey

she made with him.  In Jerusalem, her fear,

intuïtion, epiphany among black-lettered bones

of ancient script promised her for him

that his bones would rise.  Broken, rise. In him,

prophecy would melt all rotting ice to water,

water release hosanna-song, song be wish bones

of man’s desire.  That was promised.  But, alive

and tossed as cattail or bulrush, fear

and faith wrestled – circling her journey.

Thirty years – not much of a journey

thirty to thirty-three – lifetime to him.

and to her – a following.  She swallowed fear

like wayside dust.  Drank his words like water.

and waited.  And waited on him, alive

but almost ready the numbering of his bones.

Bones of mystery: she who humanly made him

life-giving as water, gives him to us forever alive:

balm for fear, healing way for the journey

Sister Maura SSND

America.  24 December 1977

Used with permission

TO A MEDIEVAL MADONNA IN A MODERN DÉCOR

TO A MEDIEVAL MADONNA IN A MODERN DÉCOR

Though not with plume or quill

these lines are written, still,

Madonna, words are said

in ball-point, liquid lead,

or tapped out by degrees

on Olivetti’s[1] keys

that glorify your name

and magnify your fame

as when your monks of old

on vellum in clear gold,

crimson and cobalt blue

spelled out their love for you.

Sister Maryanna Childs OP

The Catholic World.  July 1957

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[1] Typewriter manufacturers.

OUR LADY OF THE LAB

OUR LADY OF THE LAB

Mantled in vitriol blue upon a slab

of glass she stands – Our Lady of the Lab.

Amid the strange array of vials and jars

of rainbow liquids, crystal powdered stars,

no whit a stranger to synthetic skies

where lightning sparkles, gaseous clouds arise

from test-tube, trough, from glass and illium.

She sheds a fragrance sicut lilium[1]

despite hydrogen sulphide.  To her care

consign the young Curies[2] who dabble there

lest, greatest of all dangers, they should meet

the serpent acid-fanged beneath her feet.

Sister Maryanna

America.  31 May 1941

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[1] like that (the fragrance) of lilies

[2] Marie Curie (1867-1934) and her husband Pierre, both physicists, while looking for elements that gave off X-rays, were responsible for isolating radium.  They shared the Nobel prize for physics for 1903.  Continuing her research even after Pierre’s death in 1906, Marie, now professor of physics at the University of Paris, continued her research and received   her second  Nobel prize in 1911.

MORNING STAR

MORNING STAR

Little Temple maiden,

in your robe of blue,

playing ‘mid the lilies –

none is fair as you.

Sanctuary doves wheel

close with wings of white;

you will wear a halo

some day far more bright,

you will be our mother,

you will be our queen;

wear a golden crown and

robes of starry sheen.

None of this shall change your

spotless heart and true –

lovely little Morning Star,

you will still be you.

Sister Maryanna OP

In: Robert.  1946

MEDITATIONS IN A MUSEUM CLOISTER

MEDITATIONS IN A MUSEUM CLOISTER

Mournful Madonnas with pathetic smiles

hold out carved Babes to visitors with such

a wistful eagerness, a naïve hope.

The printed placard says PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH.

Consummate skill, the guide remarks.  It would behoove

the sightseer to know this item well.   The Louvre

contains the head.  Where are the limbs?  He does not know.

but here’s the torso nailed tight to its cross.  Still graceful, though.

The drapery has such finesse.  The folds still keep

their colour.  Tourists nod.  Beneath, John and the Virgin weep.

Sister Maryanna

America.  23 September 1939

LEGEND OF WINTER SPRING

LEGEND OF WINTER SPRING

King Winter held his icey sway

o’er barren ground and leafless tree

when once Our Lady on a day

walked swiftly through a snowy lea.

The Christ Child in her arms was chilled

He shivered as the winds blew strong,

till Mary’s heart with pity filled;

she longed for Summer’s warmth and song.

Beneath a tree she paused to rest.

its ugly twigs were black and bare.

She held Him close, the Virgin blessed,

the while she breathed a silent prayer:

“Oh winter wind, blow not so cold;

 Oh snowy plain, chill not my Son.

Pale sun, send down your rays of gold

to warm my Babe, the Holy One.”

Oh wondrous change, Oh magic thing!

The snow recedes beneath her feet;

within the tree gay robins sing

amid the clustered blossoms sweet!

As flowers bloom and butterflies

in this charmed space flit through the air

the Christ Child views with glad surprise

the winter spring of Mary’s prayer.

Sister Maryanna OP

Mary Immaculate.  1946

A LUTE FOR OUR LADY

A LUTE FOR OUR LADY

Lady, because at unvoiced plea of thine,

Cana’s insipid water blushed to wine,[1]

I dare with faith to ask:

make of my heart’s entangled strings a lute

that I in midst of beauty be not mute;

be this thy queenly task.

Pluck thou or hard or soft each sin-taught string;

under thy touch this hollow heart shall ring

with Mary – minstrelsy,

blending each thought, each hope, each deep desire

into a wholly Christocentric choir.

Sister Maryanna, OP

Spirit.  1945

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[1] John II:3-10

IDENTITY

IDENTITY

Should you meet a little saint

abroad in heaven town,

shy and sweet and gentle,

in a modest gown;

Should you find her worrying

about such things

as broken harp cords

or bruised wings;

Should you see her glancing

down toward earth,

then she is the mother

who gave me birth.

Should she step cautiously               so that all the sinners          Should she seem uneasy

out among the stars,                           may quietly slip in         when Michael wields his sword

when Peter isn’t looking                 that God may forgive them    then she is my mother

and let down the bars,                     and wash away their sin;      the handmaid of the Lord.

Should you see her watching

with an anxious air

as every newcomer

mounts the golden stair,

Eager and expectant,

she’s hoping to see

a ragged little sinner

looking like me.

Should you see her wandering

far out of sight,

pray do not blame her,

heaven is so bright,

And she, little grey bird,

seeks a quiet nest

among the birds and flowers

where she may rest

Until all her children

are safely home at last

and the days of waiting

and sorrow are past.

Should you chance to meet her,

tell her, my friend,

that we love and need her

world without end.

Sister M Helen

In: Noyes.  1946

APRIL SERENADE

APRIL SERENADE

Lavender dusk of Nazareth

lit by a single star,

vespering birds in the twilight hushed

by shepherd-horns afar.

Blue gown catching the fading light,

a maiden walks apart

hearing within the Word-made-flesh,

her secret within her heart.

Nobody knows; yet the birds wheel close

with joy the winds are fleet

hyacinths curl like incense smoke

beneath her sandalled feet.

Sister Maryanna, OP

In: Robert.  1946.

ADVENT PRAYER

ADVENT PRAYER

Like foolish folk of old I would not be,

who had no room that night for Him and thee.

See, Mother Mary, here within my heart

I’ve made a little shrine for Him apart;

swept it of sin, and cleansed it with all care;

warmed it with love and scented it with prayer.

So, Mother, when the Christmas anthems start,

please let me hold your Baby – in my heart.

Sister Maryanna, OP

In: Robert. 1946

TREE AT GUADALUPE CHURCH, SANTA FÉ

TREE AT GUADALUPE CHURCH, SANTA FÉ

The tree of heaven, ailanthus, grows like weed;

is weed.  It crowds out better trees

of more distinguished family, sheds its seed

in city yards; runs wild and does not please

tree fanciers; pleases itself; takes root;

survives wherever it finds a square of free

earth; scorns nowhere; fears nothing; thrives on soot.

Where the seed falls it turns into a tree.

Grows here beside her church who chased away

the serpent; Rooted in sandy soil, it burns

bright panicles of flame against pure day-

light; soars up into the blue; turns

eyes toward heaven, turns eyes toward her who came

among the crags: a tree of heaven all flame.

Sister Maris Stella CSJ

Commonweal.  20 March 1959

Used with permission

MINOR LITANY

MINOR LITANY[1]

Ladder by which we climb

to the sublime

Star by whose bright light

we brave the night

Mirror in which we see

Eternity

Key that will unlock

the house on the rock

Tower by which we stand

strong in the strange land

Rose in whose rustling stirred

the eternal Word

Lady of quietness

Queen of mysteries

Remember us

Sister Maris Stella CSJ

Frost for Saint Brigid and other poems.  1949

New York: Sheed & Ward

Used with permission.

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[1] Litany: A series of invocations, the response to each of which is a petition, such as: Pray for us.