Two Poems

Hello, my fair ladybug in polka dots red and orange and sunrise yellow and also shiny ebony on either side of your wired wimple.

You are April's godmother ushering in countless offspring to carry on your heritage of preserving gardens and trees.

Voracious harvesters, you all dine on aphids, mites, mealybugs, a feast of salvation for springtime greenery.

You can hold a family reunion equal to the population of a city inside a gallon lemonade jug.

Though alluring with your dots and Seurat-like symmetry, the birds of the air still pass you by;

your perfume is not to their liking and your flourish of color shames the drab coats of fantails and sand doves.

It's a miracle that within your small frame you carry a prophet's promise of fertility and season's renewal.

Poems

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 2020): 75-87

The three months Mary spent in the Judean hills with her cousin Elizabeth, miracled in old age with a child, fulfilled a prophecy for both women.

They spoke of the Messiah as a family member, a descendant of Aaron and David, and how long they had waited for him to come.

Mary recounted Raphael's courtly words and his splendored wings that filled her small room with eternity as he overshadowed her with promises.

And Elizabeth, her soul ablaze, shared with Mary God's gift of a herald who dwelt within her and who would proclaim the Christ at the right hour.

As they listened to the child in each other's womb, those cloistered spaces expanded into a symphony, the infants' hearts beating in unison.