Today the Holy Ghost Appears
Today the Holy Ghost appears
as an Eastern Phoebe, stunned on the ground,
belly up, looking dead, catching my breath
with its velvety gray shoulders and wings,
then twitching just enough that I can’t stop
myself from cupping it in my bare palms,
gathering it with a few twigs and leaves
trying to figure out what I should do.
I am old enough to know what I can save
and what I can’t, like the friendships I have
let fold into the past, how I now watch
my father stride so fast toward his death–
Sometimes the unasked for prayer is a small bird
I can set in a sheltered place on soft grass.
Today the Holy Ghost Doesn’t Appear
Today the Holy Ghost doesn’t appear
to me, but to the neighbors also walking
their dog. “We saw the fox,” they blurt instead
of hello, unable to hold back this joy.
I know when I get to the field I won’t
see him, although I’ll scan the undergrowth,
try to conjure movement beneath the trees–
a small ear flick, or lifted paw, a pause
telling me I’ve been seen. Across the park
a group plays ball, jostling and calling,
unaware. I want to be winnowed
from grief. Or grief from me, lifted to the air.
Sometimes the unasked for prayer is this longing
and the dog whining softly with me.
I Will the Holy Ghost to Come
I know it doesn’t work like this, it can’t,
but today, I will the Holy Ghost to come
as three deer in a snowy field—the two
who freeze and look my way, and one who bounds
through rough bent grass, joining several more,
the herd a mass of shade and counter shade
I’d missed. I’m brightly scarved and so at odds
with where I am. So at odds with God.
What happens next? What must. I follow
other’s tracks crimped into the snow.
Juncos strip the grass heads in melted patches
beside the road. Three vultures overhead
take turns with something dead. Sometimes
the unasked for prayer is every hunger fed.
Lisa Rhoades is the author of three collections of poetry, including The Long Grass, (Saint Julian Press) and Strange Gravity, (Bright Hill Press Poetry Award Series). Currently a pediatric nurse in Manhattan, she lives on Staten Island with her spouse. Individual poems have appeared widely including in Calyx, Nimrod, Cider Press Review, Boulevard and The Southern Review.