Poetry by Sister Mary Agnes
Draft of a Long Poem, 1972. From private correspondence.
For more information on Sr. Mary Agnes see:
https://seeingnorthlight.blogspot.com/2014/04/in-memory-of-pamela-chalkley-sister.html
My lighting streaks the magnetic furnace
seared white, fused, melted in its source
seeming inseparable
the 2 units, confused so intimately
as to be indistinguishable
veined and tissued, one…
Why this surmounting power of a gull
beating the clouds’ crests, breathless
(his shadow feather-soft below)
why the sudden simultaneous collapse
the larval swirl, contrasted I-negation
this cold knowledge;
my form lying in the dark, unconscious earth
my bone of that same substance as this crumbling stone
my thought-flashes like these drying tongues
of leaves in late sun
I who have shed acid tears
over my incompetence through inauspicious years
have as well
hearing the first sun call
light from behind the hill
bidden a power arise through eyes
which had otherwise been bitter seas
discovered I had mastered these
harvested abundant crops, then scattered again
profusely, like sun-grain
to feed a barren land
or like a veil of soft rain…
they fell on rock, unresounding, hit back
with a shock-donation of pain
Followed no hope, only the death of hope
a long delay in trust
watching each letter torn from a new day’s envelope
to discover
no word from the desired, the lover:
numbed to stone by grey mid-day
dried to bone when a faint sun
closes one half-opened lid-
no hope this, nor requiem for a departed hope
but a condemnation to perpetual annihilation.
Who drew so suddenly juice from my being
what mouth had sucked voraciously
left a discarded skin?
for all my glow was gone
that lit from within
who tore the leaves from their rich crown-
reared but a twisted bone of thorn
desolate of song
Suspend no longer this you-me-encounter
needing neither violence for affectation of expression
You, before me, in perfection
I, an erratic spark, the flicker of a star
fed from your combustion;
that occasional other
whom from time to time I recognize
(mar more frequently in my imagination)
give me to see his reality
which shines before you, erect in beauty
so that I may love him
when your sun sets over me, a radiant dove
golden on her nest
and the time for words shall cease
timeless in rest
Draped in your folds
nights falling images
construct symbolic pyramids
death’s broken triangles, cold on the face
held closer than close
your nearnesses encompass more than space
fly into sunset distances the bird-winged breaths
down silver slates, the falling moon
the blood-faced moon, approaching motionless
volcanic dragons smoulder in its breath
So is this form, your formless pace
unmeasured by the inches of my grace
Sister Mary Agnes
(Pamela Chalkley)
copyright©Dick Russell
2018, 2026
