Ordinary Time. Michael D. Riley

      Ordinary Time

      Poems for the Liturgical Year

      Copyright © 2016 Michael D. Riley. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-7945-1

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-7947-5

      ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-7946-8

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      “Let poems be prayers.”

      Priest to penitent Seamus Heaney

      Station Island

      “O, exquisite risk!”

      St. John of the Cross

      The Dark Night of the Soul

      “So far from heaven, yet still I can sing.”

      St. Therese of Lisieux

      The Story of a Soul

      “We forget too often that the only possible

      language of religion is metaphor.”

      Richard Rohr

      Silent Compassion

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      A number of the poems in this collection had the good fortune to find prior publication. Those initial appearances:

      America: “Darkness: For Mother Teresa.”

      Ancient Paths: “Signing.”

      Clare: “This Stable Ground.”

      Epic Journal: “Ashes: Lenten.”

      Iron Horse Literary Review: “One Body.”*

      Karamu: “In the Hotel Bethlehem.”

      The Plains Poetry Journal: “Via Dolorosa.”

      The St. Andrews Review: “The Last Waltz.”

      The St. Katherine Review: “Brendan.”

      Studio [Australia]: “A Prayer for the Middle of the Night,” “Canticles of Ecstasy,” “Churched,” “Conversion,”* “The Desert,” “Host,”* “In Memoriam: For Aunt Pat,” “Mickey Calling,” “Pentecostal,” “Rags.”

      Windhover: “A Prayer for First Light,” “A Prayer to Pray Again,” “Mary Elizabeth,” “Penitential,”* “Pilate’s Clothes.”

      * These poems also appeared in my earlier book Players.

      GLANCE

      A wingtip.

      Feathered air

      muses over skin.

      Come and gone,

      he alters by fractions.

      Cheek and shoulder

      shocked and forgotten.

      His shadow dims

      the trees.

      Day or night now

      by the windowsill.

      Indecisions where

      you come to yourself

      into dawn or twilight.

      What is difference?

      Death of the old self

      of illusion and desire,

      birth of the new self

      of illusion and desire.

      Soon you will know

      whether the brink

      widens or narrows,

      the light swells or dies.

      Watch. Wait.

      Do not swerve

      or stop. Do not

      sleep.

      APOLOGIA

      Because of the absurdity of a very young girl

      believing herself visited by an angel of God

      Because of the absurdity of that same young girl

      believing herself the virgin bride

      of the God of the universe

      of sound and silence

      Because of the absurdity of a very old woman

      believing she too could still bear a child

      Because of the absurdity of these same two women

      believing that in their contiguous wombs,

      contiguous extremes of age and experience

      together in the same house,

      lay caller and called,

      metanoia itself

      Because of the absurdity of one good man

      believing a dream that tells him

      his pregnant young wife is a virgin still

      and more than faithful

      Because of the absurdity of anyone at any time

      believing the most important birth in history

      took place in the darkest backwater of empire

      among dung, cold, and incurious beasts

      Because of the absurdity of being expected

      to believe in a Godman

      who is perfectly God

      and completely man

      Because of the absurdity of believing

      that the symbol is in fact, fact,

      the reality it pretends to stand in for

      in order to then stand aside

      Because of the absurdity of a life proceeding

      belief by belief in a world which believes

      a mask is only a mask

      Because of the absurdity of dead and living

      billions believing life is won by loss,

      love won by suffering, nothing won

      at all because all is given

      Because of the absurdity of coming to

      believe in love as the grass believes in green,

      silver slashes of light believe in the moon

      and shadow, brown moods and disappearance

      when the grass forgets itself in snow

      Because of the absurdity of believing

      believing