Contemplation

Brother Leopold appeared to be stuck.

"Get the Prior."

"Get Fr. Thomas."

He just smiled. Looking at nothing. As if a set of scales covered his eyes. It was a strange look, but the smile was stranger.

When he came to, still smiling, he said: "We've been wrong all along."

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I'm practicing. Foundling Review is holding a 50 word story contest this summer. Details: http://www.foundlingreview.com/PachaasContest2.html

Proof

”[...] Everything in me
Wanted to bow down, to offer up,
To go barefoot, foetal and penitential,

And pray at the water's edge.”
[Seamus Heaney, ”Triptych” III: At the Water's Edge]


It wasn't the picture I was after,
the picture was proof.
The truth is: proximity was all
I desired.

That somehow closeness could prove
friendship, connection,community
led me to the side of the road,
against the barbed fence,
to the edge of the water.

Sometimes seeing is all prayer is.
Or is it: prayer is what seeing is?

Of the three prayers:
praise, forgive, & need,
I prefer the blue heron,
two legs in the water,
bill stabbing southward,
crown raised or fallen.

The moment wings stretch
into lazy flight is
prayer answered
& prayer denied.

There is no sense in waving
as you disappear.
But I have this picture,
& this poem as proof
against the slow current
of doubt.