Bookmark Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee; All things pass: God never changes. Patience attains All that it strives for. He who has God Finds he lacks nothing. God alone suffices. —St. Theresa of Avila, 16th century At Woolworth’s my mother bought two yards of wide, red satin ribbon, parsed it into six inch lengths, pinked a crown on the top of each, sheared an alpine slope at the bottoms, fed them one by one into the roller of our portable Smith-Corona. Letter by letter, fingering each key like beads of a rosary, she imprinted the saint’s prayer and handed the ribbons out like benedictions. Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee… I found solace in the words; saw in Theresa a sister in renouncement; and times would even weep at being addressed, so tenderly, as thee.
Rita Moe’s poetry has appeared in Water~Stone, Poet Lore, Slipstream, and other literary journals. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Sins & Disciplines and Findley Place; A Street, a Ballpark, a Neighborhood. She has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Roseville, Minnesota.
Amethyst Review 