Spring inventory/Ursuline Mother House/Paola, Kansas

Christian Century, April 5, 2005 by Tim Bascom

Spring inventory/
Ursuline Mother House/
Paola, Kansas

   Thanks for this window, three stories up,
   and the breeze in the curtains, laundered by the rain,
   for the unrolling leaves, green and silver.

   Thanks for the red-tile roof and the clean white
   cornice, for the blue-gray wings in the eaves,
   coming, going, spread cruciform.

   Thanks for the quicksilver sky caught
   in a bowl, for frogs in the garden,
   flip-flap, chitter-chatter trees,

   and that one persistent whistler whose
   song flies out like line
   from a fisherman's reel.

   This is my song, too,
   cast out, cast
   out.