“By now, it should go without saying that what the oven is to the baker and the berry stained blouse is to the dry cleaner, so the window is to the poet”
– Billy Collins, Poet Laureate
Seeing in Winter
-Sr. Joanna O’Meara, VHM
I know by seeing that we wait in due reverence.
Etched into the once green earth
layers of ice & snow heaped in rhapsody.
Gathering momentum as days & weeks pass,
the human will of shoveling, salting, heaving
and manipulating demands triumph.
Nature sees its own time.
The blade of grass holding its breath
waiting to return,
the once soft pleasing dirt,
cement like in its determination
waiting for the signal to emerge.
Forget trespassing this season,
learn to look with astonishment
at the slow, gravitational
movements earthwards.
For all that we are called to,
it just may be this winter seeing.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Sr. Joanna O'Meara, Contemplative, Poet, Woman of Prayer
With this blog entry comes the first of many entries from the Visitation Sisters themselves. We are delighted to feature their voices here. Sr. Joanna O’Meara is the youngest and most recent member of the Visitation Monastery of North Minneapolis. Her poem exemplifies the contemplative, prayerful approach to seeing and being in the world; this approach is at the heart of the Salesian charism.