Volume > Issue > Befuddled

Befuddled

A POEM

By Ralph Wright, O.S.B. | November 1983

A slow befuddled winter fly

With 747 abandon

Has trundled from my window sill

And God knows what he’ll land on.

Such geriatric flies present

A crisis to compassion:

To smear them or to leave them space

To die in their own fashion.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

I spent the night — I could not get to sleep —

In counting out…

Pain of Late Conversion

Have mercy, Lord, and by your blood

wash from my brain

the sly recurring pain

…

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…