Raising Resolve
by Abraham de la Torre
Rain does not intend to mock the humble dew.
It drops at any time, it waters
even wetness in accordance with a cue
fo fall. The fault is nowhere visible
nor hid. An error does not emanate
from nature; it’s as basic as it’s good.
It has no heart whence will contends with choice;
the tremors, too, are tame compared to it.
An ordinary birth rained down on earth.
It grew in ordinariness and grief
not ordinary to a man whose strife
was singly borne that mankind may be spared
from death. And so we live without regret
for pain and ridicule and wounds and spit
all in a cup He asked to take away and in obedience took it as His fate:
His will be done. As our harndened hearts
obey our pride and envy and our lust
for riches and for life attached to self
and gratifying none outside our greed.
It is a thankful thought there is no sleep
that angels do not watch and save for what
they pray we realize we cannot wake
from dreaming dire, disorderly desires.
We thank that He is risen as we rise
along with our present and the past
no longer there, not anymore with us;
dew of salvific death, dim down, rain up.
ANGELS FOR REAL
That Sunday is a day to recreate
the Easter of our faith is also rest
for weary souls that toiled during the week.
They go to church, anticipate the light
on fellow goer’s face and give it back
at Liturgy now in the form of peace.
That, being shared, the faithful find surprise
Again in meeting brethren in exchange
for making open house and home to be
a weeklong haven for both visitor –
the Virgin Mary – and the visited;
all linked together in the Rosary.
The beads, aside from being beautiful,
are blest and so are neighborly entwined
with hands and mouths and fingers that are one
in whispering a storm of praise and thanks
love being an eternal grace bequeathed
by our Mother’s Son and Brother, too,
by virtue of His Father’s Will, till death.
The holy is not marred by whimsical
desire for rare communing with a treat
from someone’s gift of making chocolate
a baked delight to eat and also greet
a kindred tooth of inclination sweet.
The joy extends until vespers are said
and bonding beckons company that missed
the songs, the singing absence who was sick
And is well again, still thrives in music.
MARILOU: MOTHER
Her story is another kind of silence
deep. Without despair however dire
because it shunned the door of doom unbowed
except to beads she clung to constantly.
I didn’t know her nor she me and she
out of her modesty took as a task
to greet as many candidates with me
as one of those she touched and thus it was
a bond was born, a silent kind of herald
sweet. In unobtrusiveness, a meek
dispensing of polite and mannered deeds.
You see her there yet she was near, you’re sure
she was as here as when you dared recall
to pray. You were not only called, she chose
you from the many and you froze, unsure
that you were worthy, a minority
before. The major pain, as well, dismissed
as in a case. She has, you see, this ease
of speech, unencumbered by an accent
she admits, therefore, discarded. A saint
could not have had a more unconscious shade
of sheer nobility. It is no small
amount of awe that she discerns the least
release of filial grief you think arrested
to the quick. You cannot, soon you learn,
ascertain how outdoors big her heart is.
No. Because there is no measure of it
Equal to the faith we all are filled with.
