by Carole Stone
For Simone Weil
1909-1943
I lie in my hospital bed, no longer eating, see evil, gloomy, monotonous, boring. All my life I’ve freed myself of ignorance. Republican friends laughed when I held a rifle in Spain, me with my poor eyesight shooting at Falangists. God, a distant witness, tells me to fight war, exploitation. Give to the poor. He wants me to love the world. Beauty and affliction, inseparable.
Carole Stone is a Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing, emerita, Montclair State University. She has published five books of poetry. Her recent poems have appeared in Sequestrum, Presence, A Catholic Journal, and Blue Fifth Review.