“The world is pregnant with God!”
	Angela of Foligno

Can we care for Mother Earth
Gravid with God
As we care for pregnancies
In others?
In ourselves?

Once
When my oldest was very young
And very angry with me
He said
“When I’m grown up
And you are little
I am going to be mean to you.”

He thought we would seesaw
Back and forth
Between old and young
Him and me
Forever

God created us
Birthed this world

Now it is our turn
To midwife God’s birth

But we are careless
We humans
Midwives of the Divine
Too often
Too much

The Divine fetus struggles
Its umbilical cord
Choked with smoke
With plastic
With money
With indifference
With disbelief

Will Mother Earth miscarry?
Are we to be abortionists
Of the Divine fetus?

Hope may be
For some
The thing with wings
Flying into the distance
Or even the sprouts
From the eyes of a potato
Growing into the future

Hope
For me
Today
Is sitting on the back porch
Watching Woody
Move around the yard
His old man body stooped and slow
With shovel and some other tool
A long handled scraper kind of thing
One in each hand
To pick up the daily offerings
Of the two dogs

Hope is simply
Wanting the same
Tomorrow
And the next day

With Woody

What, the wise woman asks, is our task as humans
For no discernable reason
My still immature mind immediately starts
Singing the king’s song from Camelot
     “I wonder what the king is doing tonight
     What merriment is the king pursuing tonight”
Often I wonder what my mind is doing
What chimera is it pursuing
Especially
When I awaken
From an all too frequent daydream
In which I eloquently defend
Myself, my actions, my choices, my beliefs
From my adversaries
Who all too often are
My mother, sister, daughter
Curiously never my father or sons
Never my best friend
Although often another woman friend

If I am not careful
My untrustworthy still immature mind
Wanders me deep into a dense jungle
Of self-righteousness
With no guide or destination
Called there by the venomous snake
Of not-good-enough
Tempted by the poisonous apple
Of regrets

The problem with paying attention
Is that it makes me wonder
Too often
Just what the hell we are evolving into

Shall we all evolve into comfort
With alternative facts
If so
Then we better also evolve 
Into new ways to live
In a destroyed world

Shall we evolve into an oligarchy
-- Have we already --
If so
Then I can stop listening
To news that may or may not be
Some billionaire’s alternative facts

Shall we evolve into a republic
With Robert F-for-fucking Kennedy, Jr.
Or Ron D-for-Demented DeSantis
As president

I believe it was e. e. cummings
Who observed that
There is a hell of a good universe
Next door
And we should go

(Even if it is just Canada)

His body and mine
in the no space between us
hold past, present, and future

When I was a child
I knew what was expected of me
I didn’t always do it
But I knew it
The time to get up
Put on my school uniform
Eat breakfast
Go to school
Be reverent and quiet in church
Listen and learn in the classroom
Obey my parents
Do my homework
Brush my teeth
Avoid, always and everywhere,
The near occasion of sin

My college years
Started with the same expectations
But then I, like so many,
Tuned in, turned on, dropped out
Still I knew what was expected:
Protest, get arrested, resist, enjoy
Sex, drugs and rock and roll

Then I got pregnant
Got married
Got some more pregnant
And there I was
Before I knew it
At the other end of childhood
Teaching my children
What was expected of them
Making their world predictable

Now I am 75
And nothing much is expected of me anymore
And I don’t know what to expect
What I should feel like
Are all these aches and pains normal
Is all this introspection normal

I think perhaps
What this time is about
From now until when
Is simply to become comfortable
With the unknowable

Sometimes my soul is restless
Because it cannot find itself

Sometimes
Because it cannot touch the divine

But sometimes
Some glorious infrequent times

My soul is only restless
Because it is dancing

Dancing with the bossy red cardinal
Claiming the birdfeeder

Dancing with my 5 year old grandson
Cannonballing into the pool

Dancing with the quiet splash of water
Into our small pond

Dancing with the creak of our chairs
As Woody and I rock on, into the evening

Dancing, even, with the dirges
As the last of Mom’s generation 
And the first of mine
Dies

“A Rock, A River, A Tree”
Her poem begins
But only the rock speaks
     “Stand on me
      and do not hide your face”
In this beginning excerpt

I have never read this poem
(A long poem, apparently)
Although a thick volume of her poetry
Autographed and well thumbed
Sits on my favorite side table
Made by Woody just as I wanted
Natural edged and natural shaped
Deep rich polished wood
Too often obscured by piles
Of mail and other to do stuff

There, on the under shelf
That does not have the beauty
Of the top
Except in its practicality

Sits the thick volume of her poems
Yet I have not read of the rock, the river and the tree

Do the river and tree ever get to speak?
Does the river say
     “Swim in me 
      and close your eyes”

Does the tree say
     “Sit under me
      and pretend you are bodhisattva
      until you are no longer pretending”

Then I will join the fish in the river
Swim across to the rock
And stand in the sun, the rain, the wind
Having no face to hide

Yesterday I lay in bed
All day
Unshed tears spilled down
Into my gut
And hardened into concrete

Unspoken love
Winged from my heart
To my head
The left side of my head

My sweaty sundress
Worn the bright day before
Lay crumpled on the floor

Today I got up
Not until late morning
But I got up
Put on the sweaty sundress
And forced myself outside

To sunshine
And leaves
Stirring in the breeze

To a showy red cardinal
Claiming the bird feeder
As his throne

To a humble song sparrow
Nesting below the roof peak
Of our brick-red garden shed

To the nuthatches pecking
Upside down
On the trunk of the red maple

To the smell of lemon balm
Planted near the porch
To ward off mosquitoes

To the music of our low fountain
Water plinking
Quiet but steady
From one small pitcher to another
Into our rock and moss pond
Surrounded by sky-seeking ferns
And one young yellow sharp leaved
Japanese maple

WOW! I thought
How could I forget
Even for a day

I live amidst goodness
Always, right here,
My balm in Gilead

In a compromise with my parents
That age ago
(they wanted near I wanted far
They wanted Catholic I wanted not)
I started college at Marquette University
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin
As far from New Orleans
As my parents would allow
But for them at least it was Jesuit
Though not Springfield,
Which was closer and
Also – importantly - where
One of my mother’s priest-cousins taught
We called him Father Junior

My parents drove me to Marquette
That first year
A drive delayed by Hurricane Betsy
My dad walked downtown from our house
To send the school a telegram
(The first like that they had ever received,
We were told when we finally arrived)
That I would miss freshman orientation
Because of a hurricane
The first night on the road 
We stayed in a motel
VERY exciting, my first time in a motel

At the diner where we ate breakfast
The next morning
After an increasingly confused exchange with the waitress
(Have you ever seen Jack Nicholson’s toast scene
In Five Easy Pieces?)
My dad was served – reluctantly – 
A block of Philadelphia cream cheese
Since he persisted that he wanted cream cheese for breakfast

And so we all three learned
That morning
Something none of us had known before
Only in New Orleans
Did cream cheese
Always
Mean Creole cream cheese
(You might know it as curds and whey
Of Little Miss Muffet fame)
A breakfast favorite