A CHRISTMAS PRAYER

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER

Across the miles, dear friend, I send

a shining Christmas prayer

wrapped in a flame of starlight

and blue-white crystal air.

It sings of a royal Baby

with heaven in His eyes,

of little eager gestures

and glances angel-wise.

It sings of a darling Lady

whose smile is shadowed sun,

telling of Love’s sweet loving

and a grief it has begun.

It sings the noble quiet

of rough, brown, tender hands

whose wealth is their great yearning

to do her dear commands.

And when this prayer has reached you,

Oh, tell the Glorious Three

that you have received my message,

and send one back to me.

Sister Michael Marie IWBS

Sign.  December 1946

“BEHOLD, WE GO UP –"

“BEHOLD, WE GO UP –“

We who companion Christ brave death with Him

and seal upon our souls His tragic story;

as Mary pondered on no golden dream,

but a clear vision, tinged with blood and glory.

Yet in Gethsemane we fall asleep

but a stone’s throw from where His blood is sweat,

or seek the fires of an outer court

and all our vaunted loyalties forget.

O Mary, sure of sight and strong of soul,

lend us thy constancy in seeing far.

Fulfil of sorrowing our mystic seven;

redeem our holocaust and make it whole

lest the night find us, clutching some cold star,

slain in the very vestibule of heaven.

Sister M Michael SSJ

Spirit.  September 1949

Used with permission

TO THE QUEEN OF DOLOURS

TO THE QUEEN OF DOLOURS

Seven times seven

the beads I toll, [1]

chiming the music of your griefs

about my soul.

Long since my sires

and their sires before

changed their charms against the storm,

against the hoar.

Charm for the foal,

a charm against rain

potent potion for the new-bud life, and

woman in pain.

Poor were my sires

with never a bead

to fling at the Ivory Tower  [2]

and cry their need.

Seven times seven                                                                   the beads I press,

succour the seed of my sires, Queen,                                  

in this distress.                                                                         

                                                                                   

Sister Maura SSND

Initiate the heart.  1946

Used with permission

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[1] This is a reference to the dolours rosary, which consists of seven sets of seven beads.  Each set represents one of the seven sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

[2] “Tower of Ivory” is one of the titles of praise used in the Litany to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The poet is sorrowful because her pagan ancestors, though loyal to their own pagan deities, were deprived of the solace she finds in turning to God’s mother for comfort.

THIS SIDE OF THE CLOISTER

THIS SIDE OF THE CLOISTER

This is not a background picturesque;

(flats and sets) for cloister garth in novel or in play:

suggestion of the medieval in the costume; frustration in the spirit;

“sad and serene” in a half-resisted, half-desired hideaway.

Curl of a copper-foil moon

On a Christmas tree; no stars.  The starched white frame

Of wimple and of veil a cyclotron

Where ash-gray, jewel wings cavort in candle flame

Warm, stammering light.

The nuns walk in processional

Between the hydrangea blossoms cowled in heat,

Crisp holly and smooth-leaved rhododendron shrubs.

Twigs and broken brush snap like puppies at the slow-paced feet;

Wax melts to candle wyvern [1] and to gargoyle.

The nuns pray, “Hail Mary ... Holy Mary ...”

And the valley prays; the tennis court; the parking lot;

Terrace and lawn and road; the sweet gum prays;

The hawthorn; Spanish oak; yew and maple trees; the knot

Of new-born mockingbirds nestling in the lime; a family of owls,

The squirrels, the kitten and the dog.  “Hail Mary full of grace ... Holy Mary ...”

This is nothing like the neat enclosure

(sets and flats) of Spanish “Cradle Song,” or – French and quaint –

the nuns of “Cyrano de Bergerac.”  These are not nuns of time or place,

but God.

Queen and Lady, though nuns and night and prayer

Are mummers at your throne, it is you who walk with them,

It is you who carry light – a quiet semaphore to God;

It is your country lane they walk; your Bethlehem;

Your Nazareth; Gethsemane; and Ephesus.

Lady, it is your silence

In which they walk back to the cloister, to stifling cell

-          and hot and heavy muslin of the bed.

Lady, it is your joy

That rocks the campus like a cradle

through the summer night, so that the Little Boy

(still in exile) does not weep,

but laughs in His Father’s providence, and falls

(as Péguy [2] says men should) content to sleep.

Sister Maura SSND

Spirit.  1953-54

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[1] monstrous image

[2] Charles Péguy (1873-1914), Catholic writer, publisher and poet.  His works include a collection of poems in praise of the Blessed Virgin.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER

THE VIRGIN MOTHER

This is the Virgin Mother.  How young she is.

Only as old as prophecy: seven swords ...

and the Child for the rise and fall of many; [1] as

young as the joy of mothering God.  No words

On her lips, but the eyes lowered to the Child in her arms,

And children to the last generation of all.  The veil

And hair blown back by desert simoom, the storms

Of heat and sand swirling past the Nile.

But everything is tranquil in this carven face,

This woman’s poise, these cradling hands that hold

Redemption like a Little One.  Peace

Is the triumph of faith.  If the virginal veil is belled

To the winds, the heart is undisturbed.  And I,

Kneeling, read this braille – wood, and know why.

Sister Maura SSND

Spiritual Life.  1959.  Used with permission

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[1] Luke II:34

PRAYER

PRAYER

Once I looked up: Hail Mary.  It means

Ave Maria, 1 & 2.  A quote

from Poe? [1]  or Scott [2] has some romantic lines

on it.  No.  Schubert, [3] of course.  Trite

as melodies go, but good for popular appeal.

1. the salutation of the angel;  2.

 one of the small beads on a rosary.  That is all

      the dictionary tells.  My mother knew

another meaning.  She gave it to me with

singing, skipping, laughing, listening, and waiting

for birthdays.  She read the tidings to me, breath

gentled to the sound of Gabriel’s greeting.

Hail Mary.  Two words to say and know

God walked in Paradise and thought of you.

Sister Maura SSND

Spirit.  1967-1968

Used with permission

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[1] Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) wrote a Marian praise poem entitled “Hymn”.

[2] Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) wrote a Marian praise poem entitled “Ave Maria”.  It is found in Canto IV of  “The Lady of the Lake”.

[3] The composer Franz Schubert ( 1797-1828) set the “Ave Maria” by Scott in its German translation to music.  The composition to this day enjoys great popular appeal.

OUR LADY OF LANGUAGE

OUR LADY OF LANGUAGE

In every tongue a little lullaby

for dusk and children in the cradle curve

of arm.  A word for “love”, a word to swerve

off hate, a word for “live”, for “die”.

In every tongue a question – what and why –

in each the answer, this – to praise, to serve,

to reign.  One word to snare the poet’s verve

there is, and one to praise a starlit sky.

Our Pentecostal Lady of the tongues,

come, liquefy the barriers of sound;

in your few words were swept and scaled the rungs

of love’s largesse, and worlds serenely spanned.

Ah Lady, pray that here He may increase

in those whose voices hope to bring His peace.

Sister Maura SSND

Where once the wild Arbutus grew.  1945

Used with permission.

OUR LADY OF ART

OUR LADY OF ART

All these of paintings we have loved – The Head

of the Virgin where mindfulness of Him

is light translucent on her face; the rim

unflawed that Botticelli wrought to wed

Madonna of the Angels to the bread

of earth and sorrowing; and Raphael’s whim

that caught Madonna of the Chair, nor dim,

nor old is love in colour harvested.

From field, and throne, at crib, and cross is blent

the dream we dream of her; in oil, and chalk,

in fresco and in water complement

but though through these our love appears to walk,

this ours to master, make to timeless art –

Our Lady, living, lovely in the heart.

Sister Maura SSND

Where once the wild Arbutus grew.  1945

Used with permission

MAY

MAY

If this were not your month, my Mother, child

and Church would be your witness that the stars

are virginal as water; earth is aisled

with prophecy, and night with filial rays

of bright apocalyptic stars.  But May

is more: May is the child-created land

where every wilted, homely daisy spray

is for a Queen; May is the gold command

of new encyclical[ 1] on not-new truth.

May is the sound of Introit-jubilee. [2]

The unfulfilled fulfilled canon of youth;

is sleep at last; is joy in transiency

May hints eternity through blossom screen;

Mary is our folded hands in yours, dear Queen.

Sister Maura SSND

America.  1954

Used with permission

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[1] The name given to a letter which contains a papal pronouncement.

[2] Introit: the entrance antiphon intoned before a priest celebrates the Eucharist.

LENT IN THE MARIAN YEAR

LENT [1]  IN THE MARIAN YEAR

Changed be our vesture ... fasting and weeping ...

Ashes and sackcloth, these be all our wear ...[2]

How, within the lazy languour of ripe habit,

will I in penance fare?

The scourge of little whips can hardly touch

the secret sins, maculate and kept,

I can adjust a hair shirt with a mirror,

and make the Miserere [3] sound inept.

You are my valour, Mother, signed upon your year;

in you only am I sanctioned; in your face

alone my weeping finds no mockery;

my more than bread and water holy in your grace.

I desire (God knows how I desire) the cross,

though starveling in love, and inducted to dismay.

You are my valour, Mother, signed upon this year;

terrible as an army, impregnable in array.

Sister Maura SSND

America.  April 1954

Used with permission

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[1] Lent: the forty days preceding Easter, marked by fasting and abstinence.

[2] Jonas III-7:8

[3] Have mercy