MERTON THOMAS [1915-1968]
La Salette
It is a hundred years since your shy feet Ventured to stand upon the pasture grass of the high Alps,
Coming no deeper in our smoky atmosphere Than these blue skies, the mountain eyes Of the two shepherd children, young as flowers, Born to be dazzled by no mortal snow.
Lady, it is a hundred years Since those fair, terrible tears Reproved, with their amazing grief All the proud candor of those altitudes: Crowning the flowers at your feet With diamonds, that seized upon, transfigured into nails of light The rays of the mountain sun!-
And by their news, (Which came with cowbells to the evening village And to the world with church-bells After not too many days,) And by their news We thought the walls of all hard hearts Had broken down, and given in, Poured out their dirty garrisons of sin, And washed the streets with our own blood, if need be - - Only to have them clean!
And though we did not understand The weight and import of so great a sorrow, We never thought so soon to have seen The loss of its undying memory, Passing from the black world without a word, Without a funeral! For while our teeth were battling in the meat of miracles and favors, Your words, your prophecies, were all forgotten!
Now, one by one, The things you said Have come to be fulfilled.
John, in the might of his Apocalypse, could not foretell Half of the story of our monstrous century, In which the arm of your inexorable Son, Bound, by His Truth, to disavow your intercession For this wolf-world, this craven zoo, Has bombed the doors of hell clean off their hinges, And burst the cage of antichrist, And roused, with His first two great thunderbolts, The chariots of Armageddon.
Song for Our Lady of Cobre
The white girls lift their heads like trees, The black girls go Reflected like flamingoes in the street. The white girls sing as shrill as water, The black girls talk as quiet as clay. The white girls open their arms like clouds, The black girls close their eyes like wings: Angels bow down like bells, Angels look up like toys, Because the heavenly stars Stand in a ring: And all the pieces of the mosaic, earth, Get up and fly away like birds.
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