Lux Mundi

‍

“It was,” the admitting nurse confessed,
“a rather unfortunate turn.
She staggered into the ER.
I handed her the forms.”

And the name she put down? Do you remember?

“Stetson’s Corpse – Age 102.”

And then she died?

“Collapsed on the spot.”

I heard a story once,
told to me by a physician in training.
At the end of a 20-hour shift,
a boy was brought in
complaining of pain.
X-rays revealed
he swallowed a light bulb,
a small decorative bulb

from a nativity scene.

Three watts.
Incandescent.
Installed under the roof of a tabletop manger scene.
Lodged in the digestive tract of a seven-year-old boy.

The surgeon removed it from the intestine intact.
The doctor-in-training plugged it in later.
Its amber glow glistened like a star in the night.

Lumen Christi, ho ho ho!

In Medieval Germany
Hippocrates’ oath
underwent surgery
by Christian clerics.

Out went Apollo.
In came God.
“Do No Harm” survived the excision.

Be a healer and worship there.

‍

‍

Barca-lounga

‍

I. Relic

Too much the water calls to her
a siren song to break the dawn.
And there she feels comforted
as if it weren't a lonely place.

The longest wait she ever had
came far before she touched the sea.
Like monsters on an antique map
unspooled and coiled they reached for her.

Though young she recognized the voice
(and I won't let you in tonight).
The light has gone, my love sails on
a dancing, moonlit, wrinkled sea.

Alone to wander, left to guide
by easy stars that trail the dawn.
And we must start or else be lost
to terra firma all unknown.

‍

II. Ostentus

“Haul taut!”
Don’t. Let. Calmness. Fool.
Phobos’ pull don’t play.

‍

III. For Me and my Galleon

Triumph, you see, sometimes hides before it pounces.
(You can’t give in…trembling’s ok, though.)
The distinguished Capitaine de vaisseau
may not know much more than you,
so don’t let the sextant deceive:
Even God hasn’t figured out all the angles.

‍

‍

Atremento

‍

“What kind of books does she like?”

What I can’t say to this
sweetly earnest retailer is
the question is unanswerable,
like “Did Jesus like ice cream?”

Please! For once, can’t you just—

“My mother died when I was small.”

“Oh.”

The humbling leveler of all of.

“It’s for her grave.
I put books on her grave
because she had a hard life
and because she had no time to read.
I’m not sure she even knew
how to read.”

[a flicker]
“Maybe a picture book would be best?
We have a very nice children’s section right over—”

We crawl. We walk. We run. We walk. We crawl.

“Nah.
I think something by Henry Miller.
If she doesn’t like it
I’ll read it.”

Augustine was right:
Love God
and do what you want.

‍