Therese of Lisieux: a villanelle - poem

Cross Currents, Fall, 1998 by Evelyn Mattern

Was I waking up to the godhead in me when my mother said I sang in her womb? The torrent pulls all in its path to the sea.

Mothered by five in leaf-laced Normandy, I learned from their love to make everywhere home and greet everyone through the godhead in me.

With no compass besides eternity, I fly to the heart of the world, not a tomb. The torrent pulls all in its path to the sea.

In the deepest enclosure I shall be free for even in darkness some flowers bloom each springtime that wakes the godhead in me.

Jesus sleeps in my boat; hush, let him be. Given over to him, I have become the torrent that pulls in its path to the sea.

Children please parents most dearly in sleep, filling both thimble and cut with love's sum. Forever I wake to the godhead in me. The torrent pulls all in its path to the sea.