Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Laura Reece HoganDecember 15, 2022

The mystics say to dig, hammer the cloud, day
and night. That the act of gazing at the long obsidian

robe of God undresses unknowing. I have descended
one mile underground down a mine shaft

in the back of a pickup and there was no adjusting
of the eyes, only the coal oblivion of open veins. I

have tracked the dark nebula at the foot of the Crux
600 light-years from earth and I cannot penetrate

your meaning, swathed in opaque interstellar cloud
which sweeps light away with dust of loss,

blackness of grief. I cannot pierce
the absence to find a single ray. I am always imploring

you to tell me, beloved, if you have left me forever?
I scrabble the seam of your silence. You blot the belly

of earth, hollow the cosmos; you ink the endless empty
patches, you sharpen my unseeing eyes so I slip

the stars. You hew vast space for yourself in my narrow
atoms. I dimly carry this sparking quarry which slides

through my sieved soul. I am always asking you to untie
your sack of stars, all while here there are diamonds.

The latest from america

Catholics across Texas and the world, including Pope Leo XIV, are offering their prayers and support after deadly flooding struck Texas on July 4.
Each year at this time, near the Fourth of July, we contemplate freedom. But maybe we are also being called to do an extended examination of our own fears.
George Drance, S.J.July 07, 2025
Is it possible to embrace the idea of a special, evenly divinely ordained mission for America without violating Christian ethical principles?
Thomas J. MassaroJuly 07, 2025
Pope Leo XIV arrived in the papal summer retreat of Castel Gandolfo on Sunday to start a six-week vacation, giving the hilltop town back its most illustrious resident after Pope Francis stayed away during his 12-year pontificate.