The Hermit Keeps My Heart

As the deer yearns for running streams
So is my soul searching for the living God.

Oh, I yearn with the deer
more wild than tamed.
I thirst for rumbling creeks
and crags of granite, bears
for company, and gaping skies.
My God is found in wild places
and I cannot peer out
on city streets
and see divinity.

But there is a hermit next door.
In blue denim habit
she tosses back her head
and laughs at images of God.
One hand nestling the hair of an urchin
she keeps her heart on wild flowers
struggling through the sidewalk crack.
Oh, here is God! Yes, here is God
She urges me to see.

The hermit is a poet
but for days now
her pen is stilled.
I am afraid.
Unless she writes again
How will I ever feed my soul?


From A Hermit Holds My Heart
Ellen Porter
Benetvision

Still in the Early Stages

Pain is a general commodity
Like flowers in a nursery
Showering a variety of blooms
Daffodil, anemone, rose.

No one would buy it though
Not willingly, not with foresight.
Pain--a hideous palate of possibilities
Burning, stabbing, pulsing
And the dull eternal ache.

The mind loosens its hold
And sanity splinters
Instead of a floral bouquet
One broad stripe of grey
And red-like steel.

From A Hermit Holds My Heart
Ellen Porter
Benetvision

Olivia

Ninety seven year old bones
broken, pinned, left hanging
in their attempt to heal.
And skin, surgically split
the edges touching
refuse to mesh.

Nothing works anymore
the way it once did
when marrow filled
more pliant bones.

Yet in spite of this decay
your spirit flickers bright
dulled from time to time
by fear
then shining steady.
Your smile gives lie to fate.
And I do not know
if your hope leaps tenderly
toward this life
or the next.

From A Hermit Holds My Heart
Ellen Porter
Benetvision

Lectio

At first glance
I thought it was the wind
caught playful on a single branch.

Across the monastery close
the tree, alive.

But closer concentration
sees the squirrel
tail brushed and pointing
as it leaps from twig to twig
along the larger branch,
not falling.

I dig a rut through the day
seeking God.
Hospitality wanes.
Obedience, stability, conversion
slip unpracticed from my heart.
I waver toward the dark.
And suddenly
there is the squirrel, running.

From A Hermit Holds My Heart
Ellen Porter
Benetvision

The Crow or Your Mother's Death

Your sympathy came crisp and tart
as a November McIntosh
and made me wish I bore a message
more palatable than death.

I looked into your eyes
searching for a glimmer of your soul
but sure as silence
what I found was mother-dark:
a crow pecking
at its own reflection
in a pool of midnight rain.

I hunted your borders
for a whisper of grief.
After all
she had been your mother.
But you rubbed your little finger
against your thumb
as if you'd rolled the dregs
of something finished
to toss aside in
uncut autumn grass.

Your anger welcomed her going.
You shifted your weight
and lifted your arms
to wave a final goodbye.
But in the branches of your body
the crow settled in
pecking, pecking.

From A Hermit Holds My Heart
Ellen Porter
Benetvision

Vigil

There is someone dying in this house.
I see it in the hunching of your shoulders
in the way you hold your breath
superfluous
a moment longer than your body asks
and treasure it
against her final expiration.

There is someone dying in this house.
I see it as you walk the corridors
away from me.
We have never spoken
yet your body chants a silent eulogy
my fine-tuned body bends to hear.

There is someone dying in this house tonight.
Will her leaving take your soul away
or carve a space
where living you will find
the shadowed corner where I watch
and use your savored breath
to speak my name?

From A Hermit Holds My Heart
Ellen Porter
Benetvision

Prayer

What if prayer is not
holy words arrowed toward
some sovereign being
close as sound and distant as light?

What if prayer is not
a list
begging, praising, cajoling
Dear God
for current desires and eternal rest?

What if prayer is not
waiting empty in black emptiness
breathing, sighing, breathing
no more aware of god than
the wing of a bird
is startled by air?

What if prayer is
shed free of intent
rid of persuasion
empty of void?

What if prayer is
my burst of passion--
anger, joy, justice, lust--
my burst of passion
overwhelming me
overwhelming me
body and soul?

From A Hermit Holds My Heart
Ellen Porter
Benetvision

Credo To My Mother, Dying

Hair, cloudy and curled
exaggerates your features
like a mane, too big
for your shrunken skull.

Skin hangs,
no life of its own,
waiting to retire from
covering your bones.

Still, your voice
echoes familiar
calling from mother-lips
pleading, prodding
looking to say
that final goodbye.

But not yet!
Fifty years and
I have just met you
your daughter all this time
but never separate 'til now.

Once more,
hear once more
your child's song
the impossible words
scraping at my heart:
I believe, surely I believe
that you loved me.

Celibate

I hold you
fragile as a dream
in the cup of my hands.

You move toward me,
ebb away,
a tidal flower.

And my body,
forsaking touch,
nods familiarity
with the ritual dance.

Oh, but my mind,
ever my m ind
reaches out to caress
your vivid, unsuspecting spirit.

from A Hermit Holds My Heart
Ellen Porter
Benetvision