Catholic Poetry

THE POET PRAYS HER
By Daniel Berrigan, S.J.
Mother, at that word your eloquent body spoke
I search another word vainly as Gabriel.
O witnessing your consent, he saw how love planted
an axis so deep in our human soil
that history, defeat, fear, aeons and nations
turned, would turn forever about your village room,
declaring like figures in time’s rickety tower
this lightning strike, this only and central hour.

Whom the world could not contain is detained in you.
Since Love, in entering, so builds your hidden doorway,
Consent again, receive me for child, I pray:
Your nourishment, your silence, your face averted,
Your hands serving excellent bread and meat; your heart
Ages apart in its own country, its heaven descended
To four low walls and a dim evening fire.