Volume > Issue > The Bell Ringer

The Bell Ringer

A POEM

By T.J. Kelly | April 1984

He disturbs

The sleeping bells, the stolid sounds

Locked in the iron tower

That hold indifferent resonance to

The germination of a seed,

The cutting of a flower.

He wraps the ropes like ivy In the groinings of his hand

And dances

Blending joy and sorrow

With the falling sand.

Processional (upon seeing Dürer’s woodcut of Roswitha)

By Dürer’s hand, I saw her kneeling down

Before the Emperor: Roswitha — she

Who…

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…

Pietà

“Does the darkness cradle thee Than mine arms more tenderly?”

— Willa Cather

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