Ash Wednesday
God makes the beautiful skies in the morning
and God knocked that big dent in the heavy
front bumper on the old van in the lot
and it was God came up to me when I got
separated from my mother in Loblaw's
hair all gray and permed and lipstick smeared
on withered lips and told me to quit crying
you big baby but then God came up to me
He must have been about sixty and asked me
why I was crying and I said because I lost
my mother and He said well let's go find her and
took me by the hand till we found her
at the meat counter ordering some ground
round and I remember how we used to run into
Bruce at Loblaw's on occasion doing a little
shopping after work and the last time I saw him
it was at St. Clair where they were regulating his
heart medicine but two weeks later he was gone
his last words being just wait wait a minute and
my sister thought he was talking to her
but he was talking to God but God
He doesn't have a minute to spare
He knows we're out of time
and if the Jews have Yom Kippur and the
Muslidim their Ramadan well I guess that
leaves the Catholics with Ash Wednesday so
God He goes to St. Mary of Mercy and there's
Father O'Toole still looking pink and clean cut
after all these years and he puts the ashes on God's
forehead with the remember you are dust then
God is right out the door in a big rush and
catches the 36B Virginia Manor in front
of the Post-Gazette Building knowing that soon
as He gets home He'll have to use the bathroom
and He's been ignoring the blood on the paper
for some time now but He can't ignore it forever
I guess and soon He'll have to admit to Himself
that something's wrong wrong
that it might be cancer cancer
oh God
Christmas Sermon
Coffee burns my mouth
this morning,
tobacco harsh against
my throat, I
have to hustle for the bus,
body stiff and crusty
with the cold and I just
want to sleep.
I don't know why they always
find their way to me,
there can be ten other
available seats,
like this one hobbling
down the aisle on
elephantine legs,
wheezing, sick with
a phlegmy cough, blown
out in her black
quilted Steeler coat and
brown tossle.
I think oh, god don't let
her sit next to me as she
zeroes in and sags her
full bulk against me.
But she smells like
cookies, smiles sweetly
as I excuse myself to get
off at my stop.
As the bus pulls away
I light a Doral, smoke,
then flick the butt
into a slushpile, notice
how the flame flares up brightly
in that second
before it is extinguished
by the snow.
Msgr. Carroll Satterfield, S.T.D.
(1929 - 2003)
I remember how you drove up
from Baltimore each Tuesday night and
would walk in at precisely nine
the next morning, angled back and rapid,
your watch unwristed and placed
upon the lectern.
Mulcahy Hall had no air in those days,
yet we were shocked the day you,
always the impeccable
Baltimore gentleman priest,
pulled off your rabat, stood there
in clerical shirt and french cuffs,
"don't want to ruin the suit, ah, there...."
a glance around the room with those
pale unblinking eyes, then
you would begin: "Ah, Mr. Gervasio,
last time I believe we were discussing
the infused virtues and the concept
of double justice, and what, ah, was
Cardinal Contarini's position,
ah, there...?" and it was Applied
Redemption, or Christology, or
Sacraments, how you stitched
religion in our minds those
four years and though you were
a small man, to us you were enormous,
and though most of my classmates
were terrified, I thought you
magnificent.
And Monsignor, all those words
you fired at us like God's own
tommy gun, though their
subtlety escaped me 25 years ago,
gratia sanans, gratia elevans,
delectio victrix, and most
of all gratia efficax,
can I tell you, can you
still hear me,
I think I understand them now.
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