Selected Poems

Singing Hymns at Hillhaven

In the restless green age of ecstasy 
and summer, one feeble, voiceless woman 
stands up to sing. Her Byzantine hands clap 
against her body, tattered like a sail
by the hot wind of the Spirit. She comes
to stand beside us, hang onto our arms,
touch our Sunday clothes and the milky, 
soft beauty of the girls. Other residents 
heckle her like gulls, calling out, “Sit down, 
sit down you old fool.” But she has seen, 
she has heard and touched with her own hands 
something beyond us all: her body wrapped
in white linen, dancing like a bride 
on the day of resurrection.

(published in The Old Red Kimono)