Volume > Issue > Pietà

Pietà

A POEM

By Sister Claude of Jesus, SNJM | November 1983

“Does the darkness cradle thee Than mine arms more tenderly?”

— Willa Cather

….I know but one thing

You grew

And grew

Standing forth

Tall…taut

Pain wrapped you

Beyond my heart’s fullness

You are lying across

My lap

I who gave you birth

Now cradle you

In the motherness

Of me

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…

An Apostrophe to Wordsworth’s Period

Wordsworth, thou shouldst be living at

this hour.

England hath need of thee, so hath…

Fragments on the Death of a Muskrat

Ballpeened by a bumper,

Struck down by steel,

Bowled hard over pavement,

Done in with…