Grain of God
In memory of my brother.
I adored him, as a very little girl,
my big and princely brother, a runner,
and long of leg and arm and hand; a sailor
with a sailor’s shoulder-span,
stronger than God.
When I was five he told me:
Nice little girls don’t say damnit.
A blow, for then, perplexed, I had to cram it back
into my throat, this satisfying word—
I’d merely copied him.
I was ten when he confided
he’d discovered maths to prove that God
existed—a path of spirit and of stardom—a race track
not too long for him
to run and win.
Soon his sun would shine
on all the sleeping world: his dreams
of God were beams from God, he said. His mind—
I saw it delve and rocket,
sail and run.
Years would pass
before I’d really know
the unkind truth that he was mortal,
that his maths of God
were flawed.
Old, without the fame
he had foretold, he’s died now,
finally caught by God like a kite that’s caught
on a steeple by its string,
bucking, wild
as an enigma
no one can bear.
And all his written works were like so many logs
adrift on choppy seas. And yet,
I gained,
I gained in him
a grain of God, more sublime
than all blue holes combined, honeyed as a heartbeat,
and spirited,
as silence.
Johanna Caton, O.S.B, is a Benedictine nun of Minster Abbey, in Kent, England. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, St Austin Review, Ekphrastic Review, Amethyst Review, One Art, Today’s American Catholic, Fathom, Fare Forward, Windhover, The Catholic Poetry Room, and other publications. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.
Amethyst Review 