J. K. Durick is presently a writing teacher at the Community College
of Vermont and an online writing
tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Third Wednesday, Steam Ticket, and Big River Poetry Review.
My mother would always say a Jesus
prayer,
Not the one about mercy and being a
sinner,
But a simpler one she learned from the
nuns
At the cathedral school, part of that
perfect
Childhood she was always telling us
about.
It went, all for thee sweet Jesus, all
for thee.
That was it, the whole thing, but she
said it
Wherever it fit, as filler for prayers,
before or
After, a transition of sorts, a pause
between
The more elaborate Our Fathers and Hail
Marys.
She also said she said it to herself
when she felt
She needed its consoling words, when
things
Went wrong. She lived through her
husband
And a son’s deaths, hard work, and her
efforts
To make our small world better than it
was.
I don’t remember hearing the words,
except
At prayer time, but I remember her
silences
And how, if you looked closely, you
would
See her lips moving, as if she were
saying
Something important about the moment.
She even got me saying it, back then
when
Faith was easier. Now, I know its worth
lies
In how it moves away from the speaker
and
Doesn’t bargain with God, asks for
nothing,
But offers up the “all” of a given
moment.
I’d like to think that when she died that
Jesus
Himself came out to greet her and thanked
her
For the “all” she dedicated to him all
those
Years, time after time. I still can hear
her saying
The words in her calm whispering voice.
Clouds
Cumbersome nimble
Always teasing us
Testing imaginations
Into shapes.
I’ve seen horsemen,
A hand reaching down
Pulling the mountains up,
A spider holding the moon,
Some flowers in the sunset,
Some others in the stars.
I have seen tomorrow
Tumbling at us, gray waves
Topping white, crashing
Over swimmers’ heads,
Heads bobbing like apples
On the horizon.
I’ve seen God hurl lightening,
Whole herds of sheep grazing
And angels on guard at gates,
And perfect windows with
Faces looking down at us
In awe.
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