by Johanna Caton

My Dear,

You wore the winter whiteness of the light last night, your 
earth-full eyes alive, their depth more lustrous than my stones, 
My Own. No words hum like your skin: your very dust’s more 
radiant than wine, more fine than mist, more velvet than softest loam.  
My Home, I come — no longer can I bear to watch you from the realm 
of disembodiment, a spirit, thought, a word unsaid. No more.  
     
I’ll not come as a star, nor as a tumbling sea, nor staring sun.  
I could, but why? It’s bone and flesh I crave to be: a man. A man
with calloused hands all stained with soil, with sinews strained by toil.
I thirst for tears, for hunger, thirst for you. I long to make my gift
of love feed through my body and my blood — as you have always done.
And as you do.

I am forever yours,
God

Johanna Caton, O.S.B., is a Benedictine nun of Minster Abbey in England. Originally from Virginia, she lived in the U.S. until adulthood, when her monastic vocation took her to Britain. Her poems have appeared in both online and print publications, including The Christian Century, The Windhover, A Time of Singing, Amethyst Review, The Ekphrastic Review and the Catholic Poetry Room webpage at integratedcatholiclife.org. Some of her poems can be found at www.integratedcatholiclife.org/?s=johanna+caton