Two Poems by Johanna Caton, O.S.B.

Prayer

O Holy One, you needn’t come in full array, a Holy Blaze. 
Come any way or weight or size; come little, bright—come

tiny sparrow-spirit—quickly, sprint! Spirit me! Or sprinkle
all around like salt, or be all soft and spread yourself, come

sharp and spear; come, slice through lying words, unfurl,
make dizzy, whirl for our perplexed, imperilled, proud,

proud world. Spin strands for your sweet nest and rest,
nestle, abide. Or crawl, six-legged, and nibble through

the gnarled mind-shell that is mine. Steady careening me,
small saviours and big, do what you will, pull, peel, hoist,

wring, fling or brood. Run like a river, spark like fireflies.
Or, better, walk in simply, as a man who can weep and die.

What a Winter-tree Told Me

One morning as I woke and slowly stretched
my limbs, my yearning soul was like the bare,
dark, winter branches of a tree, bereft
and bleak. Yet I was only half aware
of this—some feelings steal in silently
and home, unknown. I’d thought that my belief
and hope were strong enough—but secretly
an interloper had come in, called Grief.
Still, I was absent from myself until
I saw the window, fresh with day; I gazed,
then looked again: the tree in view was filled—
though bare—was filled with morning till it blazed.
Its shimmering shook my mind awake and said:
the dawning leaps through leafless boughs. Grief fled.

Johanna Caton, O.S.B., is a Benedictine nun. She was born in the United States and lived there until adulthood, when her monastic vocation took her to England, where she now resides. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, The Windhover, The Ekphrastic Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Catholic Poetry Room, Amethyst Review, and other venues, both online and print.  

Image: The Frosty Morning, Nikolay Nikanorovich Dubovskoy, 1894