Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Walter J. OngOctober 14, 1939

Where earth goes to water.
The dark young birches cow—
Yet brown and dapple, daughter.
No silver now.

Down, down the white trees, felted
Now fast into the strand.
And the sun's green leaf-gold, melted.
Becomes thin sand.

Look! One sapling thrusts its arm, now paling fawn.
Out of the coal bed, Tekakwitha, into the new blue dawn.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
Paul Feeley
12 years 1 month ago
Horrible picture.
Mary Ziegenhagen
12 years 1 month ago
My affection for this saint rests almost entirely on my experience with a Franciscan Sister who chose the name.  Sister Kateri m OSF, was a nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Breckenridge, Minnesota during the 1950s.  She set an fine example for young women studying in that hospital's schools of nursing, medical records and x-ray technology.  We valued her instruction, friendship, kindness, and lively sense of humor.  I still think she was a saint and so now am glad the "lily of the Mohawks" is making her way through Vatican corridors of judgment and recognition of her holiness.
MICHAEL BARRETT MR
12 years ago
This poem reads like one of Gerard Manley Hopkins'!

The latest from america

I am struggling to smile and nod and accept the message from well-intentioned people, whom I love, that everything will be fine, that I should trust in God, and not despair.
Molly CahillNovember 15, 2024
Pope Francis’ encyclicals have drawn from and lead to this truth: What the world needs is heart—not sentimentality, but integration, presence and fortitude to stay in the tensions of our current reality.
Jessica Kerber, A.C.I.November 15, 2024
“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024,” Archbishop Welby said in a Nov. 12 statement.
OSV NewsNovember 15, 2024
In faith, in love and in hope, Gustavo Gutiérrez gave everything to the present. The world is a better place for it.
Daniel CastilloNovember 15, 2024