The Bad Day

I was singing.

You can tell them that

If they ask.

I was singing an old song.

I remember them---

Old songs.

And like a pile of china from a

High shelf the bad day came

Crashing down.

And then there was a

Stunned aftermath

And deep pain across my chest

And the waking call to my husband

And the two policemen thanking god

No one was hurt

And the pissed off couple sandwiched

Between and the honest man in front

Who I wanted to kiss

Who simply said

“Traffic stopped suddenly

 in front of me.”

And they took my car away.

The car where my friend’s ghost sits.

The car with that dashboard valet ticket I have left since

The rarest day in February.

The car I have no idea how to replace.

The car where a thousand angels

Cushioned the blow of a red light run

On that Halloween;

On another bad day.

I’ll be singing.

You can tell them that. Well,

Maybe not that song.

               ~  C.M. Carroll

Wordless Wednesday

For my father....

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)–
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

- Robert Frost

No body on earth but ours....

Lord Christ,

You have no body on earth but ours,
No hands but ours,
No feet but ours.
...
Ours are the eyes through which your compassion
Must look out on the world.
Ours are the feet by which you may still
Go about doing good.

Ours are the hands with which
You bless people now.

Bless our minds and bodies,
That we may be a blessing to others.

AMEN

~ St. Teresa of Avila