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12-8-04

Graphic by MamaBear

The Legend of the Poinsettia

A charming story is told of Pepita, a poor Mexican girl who had no gift to present the Christ Child at Christmas Eve Services. As Pepita walked slowly to the chapel with her cousin Pedro, her heart was filled with sadness rather than joy.

"I am sure, Pepita, that even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable in His eyes," said Pedro consolingly.

Not knowing what else to do, Pepita knelt by the roadside and gathered a handful of common weeds, fashioning them into a small bouquet. Looking at the scraggly bunch of weeds, she felt more saddened and embarrassed than ever by the humbleness of her offering. She fought back a tear as she entered the small village chapel.

As she approached the alter, she remembered Pedro's kind words: "Even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable in His eyes." She felt her spirit lift as she knelt to lay the bouquet at the foot of the nativity scene.

Suddenly, the bouquet of weeds burst into blooms of brilliant red, and all who saw them were certain that they had witnessed a Christmas miracle right before their eyes.

From that day on, the bright red flowers were known as the Flores de Noche Buena, or Flowers of the Holy Night, for they bloomed each year during the Christmas season.

Today, the common name for this plant is the poinsettia!

-Author Unknown-

I just finished this poem in honor of my dad:

The Catcher

Astride the soft memory of a muse cardinal fluttering to move the dawn,
He moves His shoulders toward the wavy heat of newness through a smoky window pane.

As I move small fingers across the time to peer into the knowable unknowable
watching a monumental shadow stand and fall;
rise and lean into the wind carrying me in his pocket,
it’s almost a mirror with frozen eyes and days immovable through a fog of years.

The Catcher would throw the ball up, up, up……and it disappeared into the light blue brightness on the catapult of His immeasurable Might.

And it was gone;
In some timeless orbit,
a memory indefinable and impossible to prove.

When it fell, a motionless solitary shadow tiny in its irrelevance, but growing, growing…
I would squeal and run under it,
surprised the Catcher knew all along
it would return and fall into my glove as He had promised.

When He flew, and the shaving cream pillows of day
skirted against the unspeakable blue purity of light,
I slept secure hugging my pillow,
safe from all in my closet.

He left home too soon,
to fight communists and dreams and his father’s past.
Alone in the crowded, vast blue machine,
He walked through the door of my solace;
and we ate sandwiches and talked of baseball and the frail freshness of a moth on a new summer morning.

I would stare at Him,
a giant, inscrutable and warm;
tough and flexible.
A Power beyond my grasp or understanding animated His goodness, and His loss.

When I looked up, He was gone;
and the curtains in the room fluttered with the breeze of his leaving.

When The Catcher moved slowly against the wind,
I stumbled, and the mighty shadow stumbled, too:
Then, I lost Him.

Then the words said nothing I wanted them to say.

And the jumble of mumbles incoherent
painted the walls of my solitary.