Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Lance Le GrysFebruary 13, 2025

I, too, was clad in a black robe, but neither a priest nor an ordinary man of the world was I, for I wavered ceaselessly like a bat that passes for a bird at one time and for a mouse at another.
— Basho

I choose for my emblem the bat
and if I had a coat of arms
there would I place it against
a field of twilight gray


for I too take my bearings
in a manner unfamiliar
to solid daylit creatures
and I seem blind to them
my circuits unaccountable
erratic
face to face
I am an ugly creature
hanging in the rafters
of structures not my own


on sufferance
and yet
not wholly ineffectual
I can but tell myself
if not for me what insects
what inexorable buzzing
what pinpricks and disease
beyond Egyptian plagues

The latest from america

A Reflection for Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent, by Ashley McKinless
Ashley McKinlessApril 02, 2025
A Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Father Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinApril 02, 2025
During his long and fruitful pontificate, St. John Paul II embraced the entire world, which stands yet again in need of his blessing, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said.
Father Marko Rupnik, a well-known priest and artist, has been accused of sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing more than 20 women.