A woman prays during an Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral in Newark, New Jersey, in 2017 (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz).

I have come to light a fire on the earth

                                                       Luke 12:49

you are dust and to dust you shall return...

                                            so why ashes

                                            those sooty remains of palm branch holocausts

                                            rather than dirt from a fertile field

                                            or an empty back lot overrun with plants and weeds

                                            to remind us that evil grows among the good

                                            yet ashes proclaim this day of dust

a beginning 

and    a consummation

                                                        marking us with His dark, sacred solidarity

 

Sr. Lou Ella Hickman’s poems have appeared in numerous magazines and journals as well as three anthologies. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015 (Press 53).

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