Art & Writing Gallery

Clear and bright, reflective,
My mother places a glass bowl on the counter.
It captures the gold morning light and spins it to spots,
scatters them across her walls, a net of rainbows.
She fills the bowl with liquid.

Outside a concave stone collects water
beside her blue pansies.

My mother, one leg almost an inch shorter that the other,
carries her thick soup very slowly, through the sun
wedges in the hallway,
on a plastic tray, to the back room for my father.

She will fill him again, in her way,
he smiles at a lifetime of her devotion.

Spiritual Direction Poems

I.
My desire for Union
has no words to tell it.
Descending, as it did, into me
before I knew how to speak.
Sometimes it brings tears,
precursors of telling that they are.

II.
Peace descends on me,
drops down into me
like a dollop of sweet honey.
Dearest gift of contemplation.

III.
Grace: receipt of gifts
so wondrous and surprising
that with softened heart
one looks up amazed,
but no longer disbelieving,
and says, “For me?”

IV.
Sister Mary met me at the center well saying
drink as deeply and as long as you wish.
Anticipating an end to thirst,
I licked away the tears of gratitude
savoring the first taste of my own holy water.