Dominican Nuns
By Atalie Young Thompson - Stanford, California, USA - Advent/Christmas 2010
Bride veiled black
at the altar kneels by noon
and moon awaiting her knight
her shield and holy Lord
who suffered gore,
for whom she keeps her nightly vigil
of fingers fumbling beads,
slowly toying betwixt twine
and pausing on each marionette Mary,
whispering ten times
five Mysteries with childlike wonder,
her mind wondering about the world,
wandering the stalagmites and stalactites of time,
tiptoeing invisibly, cloistered,
consecrated in colorless black raw
veils and robes of chastity's white
virgin sheets
stained with His blood not hers,
for she falls from her dreams at four
drops down breast to floor
for perpetual prayerful prostration with every bell toll
she hears her spouse's marriage call
----------- 'My bloody beads of bread
----------- Make us to one whole.'