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.