Latest Poem
- As in a Mirror
He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.
Then, putting spittle on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked,
‘Can you see anything?’ Mark 8: 23
I close my eyes to picture you, I see you
spitting a little into your palms, you lay
them tenderly on the blind, encrusted eyes
of a man. He quietly weeps. “Good,” you say.
Perhaps every mother cleans her child’s face
with her spit on a tissue sometimes. And why
shouldn’t she—seed grown in her body’s space
and fed by her very blood?
I close my eyes to see you and the blind man
again. Your spittle and the very tips of gentle
fingers clean the remains of mucus from closed
eyes. You speak to him, softly, as in the temple.
I once watched a mother clean her baby’s tiny feet
with spit, toes smaller than little pearls: “Cheesy smell,”
she explained, and no water. She licked the soft skin
and, industriously, with a finger, rubbed well.
I close my eyes. I see your mother reaching down
a deep pocket to pull out a small rag. You’re little,
maybe three. She licks the rag, dabs a giggling you.
Then you stop. Her eyes are a mirror, tiny, round.
I see the blind man again. He opens one eye, fixes it
on your face, sees his image in your eyes. He laughs,
surprised, he opens his eyes wide, then opens by half;
head back, he squints at the sky, whirls, grabs your hand.
He opens your palm,
kisses it.
Johanna Caton, O.S.B., is a Benedictine nun from Minster Abbey in Kent, England. Born in Virginia, she lived in the United States until adulthood, when her monastic vocation took her to England. She writes poetry as a means of understanding the work of God in her life, whose purposes and presence can be elusive until viewed through the more accommodating lens of art and poetry. Her poetry has appeared or will appear in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Time of Singing Christian Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, The Christian Century, Amethyst Review and other venues. She is a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee.
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