cradlers of words

© Marianne Paul

suitcase not yet unpacked

first act                        netty hides away the plastic flowers

the nuns have put on the dressers

of our rooms, shoves the fake roses and carnations and sprigs of pretender grass

into the bottom drawer and out of sight

traipses her pilgrim’s way through the woods of loretto

chooses flowers and twigs and stems and leaves

with the delicacy and attention of picking a name

hands arthritis-thick and gnarled not unlike

the tree trunks around her                  but there is

a strength in trees and a strength in

netty’s hands               potter’s hands

poet’s hands                the strength of pots and poems

fresh bouquet in her room where

visions grow on the window ledge

words fed by the mist of falling water wild and

untamed like netty dressed

in the burnt-orange and mustard-yellow

of  august flowers                        weeds

by another’s naming                        there is that gospel verse

that says the plants and rocks will start to sing and

heaven is held in a seed         

so netty plucks flowers

while dianne wears lush green

flowers spilling across her dress

bright against the field of her, a gaiety

that soothes an ending       

and veronica literary czarina

rescuer of sickly cats and misfit dogs and abandoned

souls                frets with

affection over her carnival of characters real and

imagined                     stories pinned up and

hung to dry, plot lines and possibilities and

metaphor strung across the backyard

of her mind, flapping/snapping

like clean sheets in a brisk wind

christine wants to take a crucifix

off the wall of the nunnery

as a memento of our writing retreats

it is the end times

the apocalypse of our coming and going

the convent is for sale           

imagine that!

taking a crucifix

right off the wall~

how off-the-wall of her

sweet christine, who cradles christ in her name

like the madonna holds the baby

in the crook of her arm

we women, we are cradlers of words 

and each other

wonder  what they will do with the bones

of sister prudential and sister madeleine and

sister lidwina and sister othelia and

sister felicitas and sister elizabeth

divine-             a century and counting

in the ground

long enough to get set

in one’s ways

five rows of loretto dead

forty-four sisters hand to hand

and foot to head    small wrought-iron

crosses marking their coming

and going