Volume > Issue > The Hidden Years

The Hidden Years

A POEM

By Pat Marchulones | September 1984

A workman asked at a village door,

“Have you a bed, a chair,

A fallen shelf, a broken drawer,

A table to repair?”

The mistress looked from the dusty room

But went her dusty way:

She could not rest from brush and broom

To hear the lad today.

The busy daughter looked and sighed

And fretted as she spun,

“Another peddler?” “Yes,” replied

The mother, “Joseph’s son.”

Pietà

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

— Willa Cather

Parting Word

“If I do not go —
the Spirit will not come.”

…

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…