I don’t have a clue
How to transform violence
My original thought was
I don’t have a fucking clue
But that seemed too violent
For this poem reverie

I remember a few years ago
Lying in the dentist chair
Instruments, lights,
Masked technician
Looming over me
Violently looming over me

Does a dental technician
Ever feel non-violent
With whirring instruments
In someone’s mouth
Chipping away at
Hard earned plaque
Through the blood and spittle

I remember telling myself
Breathe in calm
Breathe out fear
Breathe in quiet
Breathe out anxiety
Breathe in peace
Breathe out terror

Then I stopped
And would have laughed
Except laughter is as impossible
As speech
Lying back in a dentist chair
Bright light overhead
Masked technician looming
And scraping away inside your mouth
I have GOT to brush more regularly
Because I know after the pain
Will come the lecture
No lollipop for me

But I digress
I stopped breathing out
Anxiety, fear and terror
Because this thought came to me
The world has enough
Anxiety, fear and terror
The least I can do is
Hold onto my own

I began, a few years ago
Choosing a word to guide my prayer life
My first word
Held on to, cherished for a year
Was gratitude

Last year my word
Softening my too often hard heart
Was compassion

This year my word
Filling my soul with the universal
Is glory

How long it has taken me
To recover the comfort, the rest
Of glorifying that which is owed glory

Gratitude opened my eyes
To all the many privileges
For which I am thankful now
Always

Compassion opened my heart
To all the privileges
That so many – most really
Lack

Now glory opens my soul
To the oneness beyond privileges
To the unprivileged, unrestrained,
Untainted, unapportioned
Unearned, unmerited
And all too often unappreciated
Glory surrounding us all
Glory within us all
Glory creating this wonder upon wonders
This universe that we inhabit
That I inhabit
Often too easily
Forgetting, too often, to see 
Glory

Like trees walking
I dream of People
No, that’s not quite right
I dream of persons
Individuals
Species pre-determined
Mainly by ancestral genes
But sometimes by a fortuitous graft
That brings new veriditas
To a strong root and stem
I imagine each tree person
After I pause for a bow
To Tolkien’s Ents and Entwives
Formed early by genes and grafts
But then shaped by wind and water
Earth and fire
By other individual trees
Perhaps blocking necessary sunlight
Perhaps shielding from damaging winds
Perhaps doing both
By other tree individuals
Crowding close
Or keeping distance
But communicating
Conversing
Sharing communion
Through roots and biomes
Through chemicals
Unseen
Circulating amongst them
Beneath the surface

I imagine them
After I pause again for a grateful nod
To Ram Dass
Each with their individual glory
That sometimes looks like no glory at all

I imagine myself
Walking through a woods, a forest, a grove
Admiring and sympathizing with each individual
While appreciating the wonder
Of the whole

I imagine myself
Appreciating humans as trees
And, thanks again to Ram Dass,
Withholding judgment
Conferring only appreciation
And gratitude
For communal and individual glory

Perhaps I have mentioned before
My usual Thursday mid-morning routine

I join my mother
(Who is mainly enjoying her 100th journey around the sun)
In saying the rosary
With others who live with her
(Though each isolated within their high walled histories)
In assisted living

I finger the golden beads of the rosary
Blessed by the Pope
(Pius the something or other I think)
In the year 1942
Which is the year inscribed 
On the back of the cross
That begins the golden beaded rosary
That also has my name inscribed
Just above the year
Adrienne
1942

But I was not born until 1947
I can imagine this confusing
The granddaughter
Who will one day inherit these golden beads
From her mother
Who will one day inherit them
From me

The secret
The family truth
Of that inscription
Is just this:
My mother’s father
A career military man
Who served in both world wars
Was in Italy in 1942
And bought the golden beaded rosary
Blessed by the Pope
In Rome
Then used them himself
Throughout his remaining years abroad
Organizing medical units
In Italy, France and Germany
During the war
And in refugee camps
After the war

He had the cross inscribed
With the year
And with my grandmother’s name
Adrienne
1942

My grandfather, Daddy George,
Gave them to my grandmother, Mamman
When he returned
In 1946
Just in time for my parent’s wedding

And so
Because I bear my grandmother’s name
The golden beads that run smoothly
Through my fingers on Thursday mornings
Bore my name
Five years before I was born

And so
Because I bear my grandmother’s name
These golden beads became mine upon her death

But they cannot go to the granddaughter 
Who bore almost our name, my grandmother’s and mine
Combined with almost my mother’s name
And honoring the inspiration for her mother’s name
Arwen
Because she died
That already beloved granddaughter
With her twin
Before birth

So Lorien and Madeleine
Will never finger these golden beads
Nor wonder at the inscription on the cross
Nor ask their mother when her mother was really born

So I finger these golden beads
For them
For my grandparents
For my family, known and unknown
Most Thursday mornings
With my mother Lorraine

I once knew
With heaven-blessed certainty
The way, the truth and the life
And I knew that I had it all
I walked on the one, true, holy, catholic, apostolic
Way
I learned the one, true, divinely ordained
Truth
Not of the Bible
But of the Church
I wanted the one, true, only saintly
Life 
Living, dying, rising again, immortal
In accordance with Catholic theology

Later, I knew
With rationally-sanctified certainty
That all I once knew
Was best unlearned
And I knew
In that then that was once my now
I was finally on the right way
To the only real truth
By which to guide my life

Now, I know
The wonder and the rest
The glory and the peace
The blessing and the grace
Of Unknowing

Now my way, my truth, my life
Rests upon Divine Unknowable Love

Earth will be healed
Perhaps
When we forget about Eden
That too ideal garden
When we eschew heaven
That too perfect eternity
When we know
And feel
And love
That here and now
With all its bumps and bruises
All its beauty and beastliness
Its dirt and dust
With all its imperfect perfection
Here and now
Is our divine birthright

Unfortunately
It really does seem easier
For a camel to galumph
Unconcerned
Through the eye of that needle
Than for us
Who are so rich right now
To heal this
Our heavenly home
Our homely heaven

Earth will be healed
Perhaps
When we know
And feel
And love
THIS here and now

Here’s the thing about aging
Slowly, or maybe not so slowly
You lose the ability to conquer
Even your own body
Much less the world

Once not so very long ago
I tried to end a war
Once not so very long ago
I tried to conquer capitalism
Then I tried to conquer parenting
The world would gasp in wonder
As I revealed what perfect parenting looked like
I think my now grown children would agree
On this if nothing else
I did not conquer parenting
Nor marriage, for that matter

My career was, as they say,
Rich and rewarding
But I failed to conquer disease
Or even USA health insurance

Not so very many years ago
I tried to conquer some rather modest
Remodeling in my home
I had some notable success
But LO! these many years later
That small molding bridging the floor
And the larger molding on the wall
Whose proper names are clearly
Beyond my ability to conquer right now
That small molding remains missing
As I wearied of the battle

Now in my 70s
It becomes somewhat embarrassing
Even in a poem
To tell of my latest battles
For what poetry should I write
About what my own physician
Somewhat cavalierly refers to as
Fecal incontinence

Yes, dear reader,
My battles and my conquests
Much less my defeats
Are best kept private these days

That is why I no longer dream of conquest
Or victories or battles
But live grateful for peace
In my bowels if nowhere else

If I saw Oliver’s wild geese
And Angelou made them rise and fly
If Berry were a wild apple tree
And Dickinson a drop of rain on his tree
If Cohen’s light shone through cracks
And Kenyon let evening come
If cummings shot dogooding folks on sight
And we reached the top of Gorman’s hill
After taking Frost’s road
If I could fill Kipling’s unforgiving minute
Not with distance run but with Love
And plant Stevenson’s seeds each day
If I could walk Tolkien’s road going ever on
And meet Alcott’s pilgrim in my progress
If I could snuggle always with the psalmist’s God
And never fear Dante’s hell

If I could write this forever
And name all my life’s
Poets and authors
Still there would be more
Always more to discover
An eternity of words
To take me beyond words

Hobbes the cat was long lived
And long loved
Though not necessarily by me

First by Arwen
My elfin daughter
Elfin to me not because of small size
(She is close to six feet tall)
Nor even because she was conceived
Most likely
In Wales
And born
Most definitely
In England
But because I have loved The Lord of the Rings
Since I first devoured it
Too long ago to remember just when
(Middle Earth was my safe haven
Throughout an adolescence that was stormy
In the sense that a cat 5 hurricane is stormy)

So Arwen is Arwen because
I love Lord of the Rings

When Arwen was in high school
Her much loved cat
(Whose name may have been Softy
Or Stinky)
Died

Her volleyball teammates scoured the winter countryside
Until they found a cat that had kittens 
Out of season
And surprised Arwen 
– and me – 
with a gray tabby kitten
She named Hobbes

Two short years later
Arwen left for university

Hobbes lived another 20 years
and became my husband’s cat
while I gave my heart to our big dog
whom our boys had named Vanity
thinking Vanity meant beautiful

Hobbes loved to sleep on Gordon’s chest
And sometimes even on his head
Which bothered Gordon not at all
But drove me crazy

Vanity died
My husband died

When Gordon was in palliative care
My sister came from New Orleans
And slept in our bed
Until she was startled awake
By what she described as 
A gray mountain lion
Pouncing on her chest

Hobbes lived on
Moving twice with me

Joined eventually
By Sugar and Spice
My beautiful big mutts
Sugar like a yellow lab
Spice like a cinnamon shepherd
Litter mates
Found
In a North Carolina town garbage dump
Flea ridden puppies
Foraging for themselves

I made the five hour drive to make them my own
And bring them home to Hobbes
Who was unimpressed

Vanity, Sugar and Spice
I loved for themselves

Hobbes I loved with a tenderness
That had little to do with cats
And much to do with grown daughters
And deceased husbands.

Ten o’clock most Thursday mornings
I join my mother
And a few others
In the small chapel
Of Our Lady of Peace Retirement Center
Where Mom lives now
In 2024
Making her 100th journey around the sun
Worshiping still, as she has always
The Son of Man
Jesus the Christ
The Anointed
The Messiah
With a special devotion to his mother
The Blessed Virgin Mary
Or, as I often say 
But never in Mom’s hearing
The BVM
As if she were a particularly fine
Make of car

My mother’s faith is no longer my own
But I join her and others
Most every Thursday
To say the rosary
That five decade prayer to the BVM
Interspersed with the Our Father and 
Glory be to God prayers

Throughout my grade school years
Attending St. Leo the Great Catholic School
In the overwhelmingly Catholic city
Of New Orleans
We said the rosary after lunch
Every day, Monday to Friday
Together as a class
With the sole objective of speed
HailMaryFullOfGraceTheLordIsWithTheeBlessedArtThouAmongWomen…

Now, sitting with a small group of the residents
Of Our Lady of Peace Retirement Center
I say the rosary slowly with them
Savoring not the words but the rhythm
Not the meaning but the community
Not with my head but with my heart