Praying for Poems
The words come like answers to prayer flags,
or to the prayer on the lips of the old woman
as the priest leans in with oil on his thumb,
the scent of almond on his breath,
and an answer to the question she wants to ask.

Blessed Sacrament Parish
Nuns taught the old math,
and God still spoke a foreign language.
Sunday mass was a solemn ghost story,
with the mysterious and awful allure
of God’s body trapped in an atom of bread.

Driving West into the Light
The magical Western prairie rises from a valley of beautiful ruins.
Mountains with their strange bones jut skyward,
steep canyons plunge deep into the Earth.
The night sky opens above me like a fan painted with stars.
Suddenly, I feel the Universe isn’t done with me yet.