Steven Schroeder | for my sisters
in memoriam Mary Schroeder (1929-2020)
1
Before they locked him up and made him a saint,
Francis called death his sister, same as the moon,
stopped to talk with every stray,
and danced barefoot with the universe.
Now they open the cathedral once a year
and let the animals in to bless the place
while the universe, wholly other, goes on
dancing, not thinking, about the cathedral.
2
On the morning my mother turned eighty four,
we talked about the time five years before she nearly died.
In the hospital, she said, she went to another place,
where she heard the same song over and over,
but she couldn’t place it. When she woke up,
she asked us what that song was we kept playing.
She is dying now, a thousand miles away, and I suppose
the song is the one that keeps the universe dancing.
3
My sister the moon is beautiful, same as death.
Her dark radiance falls on every heart,
open or closed. I give sister moon
a message for my mother
and every one I’ve ever loved.
And the universe, holy
other, dances on,
like death, convicted.
Chicago
December 2020
