Mary’s Pentecost           

poem by Mary Stromer Hanson

                                       

art by Gisele Bauche, Canadian

Love at your first breath,                             

My death at your last,

The tomb you escaped,

We embraced, we ate,

Forgot past sadness.

Swallowed in a cloud.

How does a mother

Contain all of this?

Here and gone again.

Enough, no further!

Forty short days, Jesus

I hardly left your side,

You promise to return

Exactly as you rose

by clouds in the sky.

Now wind, tongues,

Of flames on our heads,

Maid servants will prophesy!

It is true, I am blessed,

As the angel Gabriel said.

Your comfort is with us,

In this Spirit you sent,

I feel your breath again.

As you were here before,

I ponder these things.

My other children,

have taken me in.

Yet my first is still here,

I am content now to die

In peace and oblivion.