Meeting the Father
Sister Isabelle Rose has met the Father,
sits swinging in a long roped swing
descending from Heaven where mists
rise like those over the Holyoke Bridge.
She sits swinging, her body slim
her hair light brown, curled,
no glasses set upon her nose,
happy to be held in God’s grace
but not in his arms, just as she
was in the convent
when married to his son, Jesus Christ,
swinging through the mists
the belt tight on her waist
her boots laced up knee high
for sixty-eight years
married to Jesus Christ
whose hand she never held,
though his face shone before her
in prayer and statues throughout the convent.
Swinging on the wooden board
her earthly father had fashioned
in their tiny backyard, their only tree
before he died, leaving the four children
and her despairing mother.
She left two suitors,
gave up her name Evelyn,
not allowed more than monthly visits
from her earthly family; she joined another,
chose another father
just as far away in spirit
but alive and glowing in her heart
a familiar love she could sustain,
not give up, not to anyone.
Laura Rodley © 2014
Pushcart Prize winner and nominated for Best of the Net five times, Laura Rodley has had work published in Best Indie Lit New England, Massachusetts Review, and Hunger Mountain among others. She is editor and publisher of As You Write It, A
Franklin County Anthology, a compilation of memoirs from seniors age 70 through 95.
She also contributes features such as “For better or worse” and “Red Fire Farm and the secrets for success,” and “Having trouble with invasives? Try goats as your extractors” to Country Folks, the Weekly Farm Paper Highlighting Agriculture.
She has two chapbooks from Finishing Line Press: Rappelling Blue Light and Your Left Front Wheel Is Coming Loose.
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