mother of the road

This morning I read a poem, a prayer by Kathleen Norris. It's the first poem in a skinny, beautiful collection called Little Girls in Church, and it is a good prayer for me to be praying these days:

A Prayer to Eve

Mother of fictions

and of irony,

help us to laugh.

Mother of science

and the critical method,

keep us humble.

Muse of listeners,

hope of interpreters,

inspire us to act.

Bless our metaphors,

that we might eat them.

Help us to know, Eve,

the one thing we must do.

Come with us, muse of exile,

mother of the road.

I also include here part I of a poem in five parts, "Mysteries of the Incarnation"(also by Norris, from the same collection): a riff on Mary's response when a messenger of the Holy One informed her she was highly favored and would bear the son of the Most High. Gotta love anything that can combine the Virgin with the Rolling Stones and come out with something sacred:

"She Said Yeah"

The land lies open: summer fallow, hayfield, pasture. Folds of

cloud mirror buttes knife-edged in shadow. One monk smears

honey on his toast, another peels an orange.

A bell rings three times, as the Angelus begins, bringing to

mind Gabriel and Mary. “She said yeah,” the Rolling Stones

sing from a car on the interstate. “She said yeah.” And the bells

pick it up, many bells now, saying it to Mechtild, the barn cat,

pregnant again; to Ephrem’s bluebirds down the draw; to the

grazing cattle and the monks (virgins, some of them) eating

silently before the sexy tongue of a hibiscus blossom at their

refectory window. “She said yeah.” And then the angel left her.