Healing
Ode to a Ginkgo’s Leaves
O yellow, sometimes e’en
gold, but with a tinge of slightest green,
undulating before my gaze,
each leaf’s changing
as the sun o’er my shoulder
leans, o you, dear leaves, doth arrest
me in my tracks, because
there is something
about your countenance,
which makes me believe you once
cradled my Savior’s
Shadow as He walked past.
Emptying
(John 2:1-11)
At the Wedding Feast of
Cana I am, traversing there in my
mind, watching, observing
all the joyous people, no longer
limited by space and time,
lingering in the background
at the periphery of all the guests,
not hoping for my stone
water jar to be filled, but rather
the intercession of the
Blessed Mother with her Son,
to have the vessel be
emptied of its useless fear
and despair.
Asking the LORD
May my prayer
appear before You as sweetest
incense, its wisps of hope
curling and cleansing
like perfume scented with
daydreams of desert
streams. May my soul be
wrapped within the refuge of
Your wings, clothed in
the hues of a sage oasis,
content like an infant
from its mother newly
weaned.
John 11:35
("Jesus Wept")
All the people whom
Jesus helped – the little people,
the poor, the outcasts,
the marginalized, almost all of
whom are unknown and
unreferenced in the Gospels, those
people, these people,
became like drops of moisture
in the quiet, sweet waters
of the 23rd Psalm.
In their anonymity, they
assumed their place
in the community of saints,
and outward they
rippled over all of Palestine,
shouting hosannas in
the present tense of “I AM”
rhyme.
Psalm 121:2
("My Help Comes from the Lord")
A carpet of golden
yellow, a spiritual journey sown by the
breath of the Creator’s
hand Himself, and there
I behold the faintest outlines of
a path, and ginkgo
petals beckon to cushion
the soles of my feet – and to assuage
any underlying fears and
autumnal doubts of where
I am, and where
righteousness leads.