Our Sentinel

“Be with us now, and in the hour of our death.”
From the “Hail Mary”

She guards
the winsome silence
of this shaded place.
A woman of softest stone
stands unmoving,
showing outstretched hands.
What does she offer
one who waits
in wearied stillness here?

Humming birds flutter
about her face,
while restless whitened butterflies
grace her harboring breast.
I watch without time,
surrounded by this flowered,
sacred grotto space.

Once, a vanishing sun-star
called to me out of still-born ages
lost.
I heard its voice
from deep within green-orange colored,
pillow-like Pacific clouds.
Their unchained shapes
grew restless,
rolling over buried seas
on a slate-flat dark horizon.
Winds blew chill,
heralding night.

Days have swept across me
since, like storm-waves,
thousands fleeing fast,
leaving me ashore.
Cast away among lifeless angels,
I clung
to an empty
desert empire.

Today, my musing
seldom dwells in dusty,
prison cells.
Heartened, I take strength
like a soldier embattled
but guarded
at every side.

Armies place sentinels
with living and dead
at stony tombs and sleeping camps.
They pledge safety and rest,
as night swallows day,
for all who keep close
within their watchful stance.
Likewise, might she
look after me?

In my garden, I bow,
covered and crushed,
withered by grief-gone ways.
I stare beyond
carved-image eyes
into stateless places far,
tomorrows long resisted.
I know
someday still,
I’ll go.

I know:
No matter now,
since I see her gift.
She once was host for a child
so strong
someday mighty nations
will fear him more
than mortal fire.

Yet, beneath her gaze,
I feel
as he must have,
an infant sleeping,
watched over,
cared for,
safe.