Bread Of Heaven And Roses

 

 

 

'What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.' Ralph Waldo Emerson



If Emerson had asked your mother
'Tell me what you know'
he would have missed her whisper
She could pluck, unpierced,
the thorny rose
disseminate its perfume
discover no invisible worm
She was loving living
and living loving
not buried in getting ready to live
She knew that the substance
of generous giving
was in asking for Grace
and baking the bread of sharing
with the leaven of trust
humour and humility
which, cast on the waters,
did that Galilee thing
and, as Cervantes noted,
helped to drown sorrow
Transcendent skies
weren't the bread of her eyes
but the kindness kindling
warm light in a lonely eye
a gleam and dream
of harmonies long-forgotten
yet just over the horizon
This, this, was Panis Angelicus
blessed morsels falling freely
from her ample board.

To peddle Emerson's lexicon
would have wasted litanies
She knew by instinct
that what lies behind
and what lies before
are tiny matters compared
to what lies within
She could not do a kindness
too soon, for she knew well enough
how soon it might be too late.

Your mother hitched her wagon
to her namesake's crown of stars
her 'Yes!' to life in every breath
gesture and neatly sewn prayer
proclaiming a destiny fulfilled
to the women at the gates
her mortal shoes treading an earth
that weeps and laughs in flowers
her inner child the while
inhabiting the courts of heaven.

 

 

Image: Oleg Trofimoff