Friday, November 3, 2023: Sister Lou Ella HIckman's "what mythical creature singing", and "a journey"

what mythical creature singing

what mythical creature is she

singing the voice of the river

yet the river itself is mythical

nothing unusual for it to sing

to roar in white water

perhaps she is also the rafter carried along

as earth’s memories are carried

along canyon walls

that too is singing

that too is mythical

the earth how unusual

being herself singing

mythical

a journey

the few memories

that survived

slept inside a house

with neat plain rooms

a small kitchen

and a small mowed lawn . . .

a screened porch

like other faces of the ordinary

spoke to the world nothing of shame . . .

my years faded forward

until counseling opened

an unexpected gift

an omen in a dream

that gutted everything glacier

and life collapsed . . .

this ancient gracefulness appeared

a spirit animal talisman

carved to fit in the palm of my hand . . .

now as i turn seventy

survival is a wildness wonder

marked with prowling paw prints

and fresh scat

tonight

as i sit in this silence waiting

for the first snow to fall

a soul-faced she-wolf

flashes across the forest darkness

in my eyes

© 2023 Sister Lou Ellen HIckman

Bio: Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer.  Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, US Catholic,Commonweal, The Christian Century, Presence, Prism, and several anthologies.  She was a Pushcart nominee in 2017 and 2020. Five poems from her book, she: robed and words, set to music by James Lee III were performed on May 11, 2021 in New York City.