AWAITING SPRING

Spring begins in the ground,

Tiny shoots of grass greening all the land.

Bold faced daffodils peer toward the warming sun.

Yet the bare oaks lift skeletal branches heavenward,

As if in supplication.

Frenzied March whips the leftover leaves round and

Around while the tree trunks still wait for Spring’s

Sweet kiss.

Oh, those silly Bartlett Pears will early fling their white blossomed

Limbs in the frivolous March wind with Winter’s last frosty breathe

Still the giant oaks will slumber on.

Yes, all the earth will stretch and yawn with sun warmed breath

Till finally, with April’s magic touch, the great oaks shake their

Newly garnished bright green heads, for Spring has finally spread

Upward to embrace the last bare bough.

 

                                EUCHARIST 

                        Eyes searching, hands reaching

                        “Body of Christ”

                        Mouths opening, hearts yearning

                         To receive Him.

                        “Body of Christ”

                        From the ends of the earth we come,

                        Brown, black, yellow, white

                        “Body of Christ”

                        All the shades of humankind,

                        We come gather into one.

                        “Body of Christ”

                    Wherever we are He is, receive Him

                    Be aware of Him, open to Him.

                    “Body of Christ”

                    We come to Him, become one in Him.

                    “Body of Christ”

                    Smooth hands, snarled hands, open hands

                    Reaching, touching, needing, pleading

                    “Body of Christ”

                    Faces taut, hopeful, expectant revealing a life

                    Unseen, unknown except to God

                    “Body of Christ”

                As He knit us in the dark of our Mothers’

                Wombs, He knits our beings our souls

                Into His likeness, the gentle revelation

                The transformation

                “Body of Christ”

                                ONEATA, ONE AND TWO

My name is engraved on a granite headstone

With a date that isn’t mine.

I have seen her sepia pictures.

She was tall and dark with unspoken words

shaping her lips, hovering in her eyes.

She was named by my English Great Grandfather,

And I was named for her, my Grandfather’s beloved sister

As she lay dying in an agony of pain that oh, so

Slow summer, long ago.

Where did our name come from? I often

Wondered as I stood staring at her headstone nestled

In the long grass of Elmwood. Until today.

Today I discovered there is an island in the fabled land of Tongua

Named “Oneata”. How fitting that “Oneata” should be

A far away place with oceans and lands between here and there

As there are oceans of time and change lie between she and I.

Perhaps that old Englishman had heard of Oneata Island and thought it a

Good name for this daughter of his elder years. He may have thought

She would be an island of refuge and delight in the seas of his old age or

Then again maybe it was only romantic whimsy that caught his fancy.

This name, a source of family legend that has traveled further then her life, seems to me a

special link of kinship, a recognition of our shared essence though her thoughts are

hidden from me even as that tiny island floating in the vast Pacific ocean.