Saving Mercy

O Lord, “create in me
a clean heart” and wash the soiled
memories and reasonings
from the murals to which I cling.^*
“Leadeth me beside the
still waters,” wherefrom Your Love can
bathe my soul in Beauty.^**
O Lord, “create in me
a clean heart,” and I, in surety, can in
Your sheepfold rest in peace,
dipping my gourd into
Your living spring, eternally
slaking what before
could not be relieved.^***

Sisters

(“Lord, Don’t You Care That My Sister
Has Left Me to Do All the Work by Myself?”) *

O’, bumblebee,
engrossed and enveloped
as you are,
captured in this
split-second beatific
vision of the core
of Beauty, are
you like Martha,
busy and bustling,
or rather like Mary – seated
rapt in listening at
the font and foot of the
Teacher’s lips, His
words pouring forth,
pollinating and
bathing, Martha the
moments missing, Mary
them in her heart
saving…?

Grace

O my Lord,
You so easily peer into
my heart, winding Your way
deftly and knowingly through the darkened
corridors and staircases
and recesses of my soul –
and alas You find
me, on a slab in a drab
burial cloth, hidden
behind a hewn rock hitherto
unrolled – but just as in
the Garden of Eden when
You found Adam and Eve in leaves
aft their fall clothed, and
just as for Lazarus in
Bethany four-days aft his
death be told, You mercifully
summoned me forth,
and grace’s white raiment You
chose I wore.

Luke 8: 43-48

"Who Touched Me?"

Lord, there You are — the
Only-Begotten Son of God,
the Word, the Word Made Flesh,
the Word Incarnate,
the Lamb of God … And
You are veiled behind this small,
metallic, tabernacle door, and
I am alone with You, and
all I have to do is to open the
tabernacle door, not
with a key but with
my heart, or to just lightly
touch the exterior metal, like
the woman with the
chronic bleed once did with
the hem of Your garment — from
whence You felt an
indescribable rush of
Your power into her flesh,
stoppering her bleed
forever, while around You the
crowd continued its
seemingly inexhaustible,
irrepressible press.

Luke 17:11-19

"Where Are the Other Nine?"

“Go and let the
priests examine you,”
Jesus said, and so in fulfillment of
the Law all ten crocuses
obeyed. While enroute to the priests,
they were each made clean, but
only one crocus decided to
return and thank Jesus.
Jesus said, “There were ten
made clean; where
are the other nine?”
The only reply the lone
crocus could make was to stand
in praise, radiant amidst last
autumn’s leaves of brown,
now clothed in Easter’s
finest purple raiment,
and tho’ a Samaritan, no
longer lost but found.