Ellen Porter
4/15/07
Caryn, My Sister

She straddles the country.
Her body and half her mind
find living space on Lake Erie.
But her soul and the mind of her heart
belong in the west:
the northwest, the Pacific.

It is her granddaughter
acting as magnet
the urgency of watching
two become three become four.

And here in the east
I am oh so slowly, dying.
She wants, needs to
bide her time with me
as helpmate
assisting with showers
gathering things from floor to floor
as my oxygen tether
reaches its endpoint.
She cleans my room,
keeps oxygen from flame,
drives to get the next drug.
She says she feels useless
yet to me she lightens
an impossible load.

I am torn for her
stretched east and west.
My love wants her happy
her own home on the wet and stormy coast
oddly called Pacific.
And I think of losing
her close heart and want her to stay.
But east or west
she must test the magnet pull
and choose her own direction.


Ellen Porter
6/18/07
Friends

California and Kentucky
meet in Erie, Pennsylvania.
She marvels at
the coincidence and
names it a miracle.

I look at the pattern,
mouth agape like
an idiot,
and I, too, push
my finger into the plot
and stir.
Perhaps it is a miracle.

Twelve years now and
our friendship flourishes.
Yes, there are times
we reject each other:
blame or anger or withdrawal.
But then we remember
the wonder of it all,
discard our disputes
and bow to each other
in holy surprise.
This is the miracle.


Ellen Porter
6/26/07
Introspectively, Subjectively, My Self

I do not think of death anymore
but of disability.
They say the tumor has shrunken
a sea anemone
probed with a single finger
pulling in around itself
prickling, greedy.
I am grateful
do not misunderstand.
But I am left to deal with the residual.
Tethered to oxygen
I am restricted in my movement
room to room.
The tubing knots around my feet—
a lethargic snake
too awkward to coil.
Yet without it
I am left short of breath, panicky,
urine threatening to burst unbidden.
And there is the fatigue:
A lethargy I don’t trust.
Is it a drop in some vital function
or is it sloth, hanging loosely
upside down
waiting for some entertainment
worthy of effort?
I try not to whine;
I hope I merely explain.
It is not death I battle
but the fragments of living
I am left with
these warm summer days.


Ellen Porter
7/5/07
Pain Surprises

Pain surprises for no reason
Toes, heels and knee
A pill in the stomach.
When will it reach my feet?


Ellen Porter
6/15/07
Simplicity

She was born in
the southern hills of Pennsylvania
no plumbing, no lights
the call of God in her soul.

She threaded the country
looking for a home
found a community that nourished animals
and joined for awhile.
Then traveling on
she visited our monastery
and stayed.

Today she has been
our sister for many years.
She walks, head bowed, eyes downcast
in holy obedience
through monastery halls and grounds
delighting in deer and daffodils
and the deep solitude of the woods.

She never meets the
greeting glance of another.
When she talks,
rare and startling,
she is likely to show surprise
that she is recognized.
She knows no one’s name.

But once
at the funeral of the Polish mother
of a monastic
she was again called by God.
As the casket turned for its
final journey from the chapel,
she walked unbidden
unexpected
from her pew
and standing quietly
one hand resting on the pall
she sang
untrained
captivating
unaccompanied
an old Polish hymn.

Such courage
such generosity
issuing from her silent,
profound simplicity.


Ellen Porter
7/26/07
The Monastery Grounds

For three days now the booted, ball-capped men met outside my window. Mostly they stood and watched a piece of roped off grass growing, their imaginations of a two story, vacation home for the sisters already urging the future close. I wondered when they would begin to dig. A rabbit ran close, leaving its safe places under tree branches, under the boardwalk, to look carefully at this piece of land, newly set apart. And then the shovel, tractor-like and noisy, its huge maw breaking ground, digging, leaving these first jagged scars. The lawn, comfortable, familiar with its previous ground, lets go with grassy fingers. I yearn for simplicity, grieve this unnecessary piece of monastic progress, this confiscated bit of rabbit space.