A cascade of candles huddled
like the pilgrims who lean into the sloping stone
for shelter against a weeping wind.
The pearly tapers in a wax pyramid
whisper their prayers and burn down to spongy stubs.
A slanting rain foams over the loosened earth;
severed grass roots and softening clay clumps
ooze down the embankments of the river,
a roiling rust, a melting world.
Dust to dust.
I bow my head under a leaf green umbrella,
holding it low against the gusts which try to capsize it.
My rubber-bottom cane glides in front of me
along the slippery marble floor. I dare not fall--
alone across the ocean from home.
An icy blast whistles through the peaks of the
and ducks beneath the cheap chiffon scarf
with the imprinted basilica tied under my chin--
the one I bought from an old lady in black,
a widow like me, on an inclined sidewalk
across from the cemetery.
Lady at the rock who waited for Bernadette,
asthmatic child sleeping in a stone jail.
She met her at Massabielle, this rock
I touch while icy water seeps
in rivulets down the blackened crevices.
She waits to meet me now--
will my daughter have Mass said over me?--
now and at a time soon.
Ashes to ashes.
Published in Ruah: A Journal of Spiritual Poetry, vol. XIV, 2004