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THE
LAST DAY
Olga Ryazantseva
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Life is coy
Nana Hietanen
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Radu Barbulescu
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Comes a naked moon |
I lonely walk by the streets.
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Thoughts of you carry me through space
where mysteries flow in waterfalls
and love warms my heart
like sunshine beams
I am with you in spirit and wishes
surfing loves wonders in glides
aching for touches
that sing to me
Longing for nightfall's freedom
to be with you in abandon
closing all doors
but one
Love calls to me across time
as cattle call in the meadow
singing sweet clover songs
of tomorrow's promises.
Sylvia S.Spivey 
RETURN
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The sliding board,
beside the swings,
and
near the grove of trees,
where S.V.O. boys
liked to be,
always was a high for me.
Up one rung,
and then another,
and another,
one after the other,
until it seemed
I reached the sky.
Excitement peaked,
when I could see,
St. Vincent's far off red brick wall,
and know that I stood higher
than this wall,
so formidable to me.
Then, with a "swish",
I'd meet the ground.
Virgil Gelormino RETURN
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The Bells of Edimburg:
I hear again their echoes "ding-dong",
as the festive crowd fills again the square,
and
the sun bathes in a sky of blue.
The Bells of Edimburg:
break my doubts of crystal,
returning form and color
to my childhood dreams,
as in the prettiest painting of Renoir,
where the blue conceals the black.
Bells of Edimburg,
the wind spreads your joyful sound
throughout the region
and
even bears it to the edge
of a rocky reef
that speaks to the sea:
whispering words,
from the wind to the waters,
which only those can hear
who stand in the silence
of their hearts.
Roberto Pelliccetti
( Translator: Virgil Gelormino )
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With hands,
knotty and crossed,
their faces,
furrowed by laughter
and
tears,
their glances,
reflecting souls now nude,
their words,
sighful and passionate,
distant and vibrant,
they breathe in an oasis
of shadows and silence.
Lost in their own fears,
they gropingly step
through blinding worlds
toward their final union.
Gilda Iengo RETURN
( Translated by Virgil Gelormino )
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Stocky,
dark-complexioned,
stern and severe,
her strap, at the ready,
Sister Conradine was nun in charge
of the boys' dormitory
at St. Vincent's Orphanage.
Up through a strict Teutonic rearing
in her native Germany,
repressive force was her choice
for keeping orphan boys
compliant with the rules.
At bedtime,
silence was the rule.
Those who broke it
had to "kneel out"
on the hallway hardwood floor.
One day,
in the hallway,
Sister Conradine motioned for a boy,
just transferred to St. Vincent's
from St. Ann's Infant Home,
to try on several items
of donated clothing
which lay in piles
on two long tables,
one at each side of the entranceway
to the dorm.
The six year old,
slow and awkward,
anger flashed across the sister's face.
The boy,
frightened,
his bowels filled his drawers.
Sister Conradine,
infuriated,
grabbed the boy
and
clamped his head
between her knees.
And as her brown Franciscan habit,
enveloped the lad in darkness,
Sister Conradine, strap in hand,
gave a stinging whipping
to the crying boy.
Virgil
Gelormino RETURN
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Among house-tops
first snow flakes were pirouetting,
at three,
casually sailed in crowd of black helmets
unfolding the desolaton of an immense carpark,
circled headlights of cars
on our faces expelling inner peace,
we stopped at a newsagent¹s
to read the latest weather forecasts,
like an elk trapped in traffic
all waited for the ineluctable turn of the wheel,
slumped in front of a revolving stage
to watch the Wagnarian opera.
Dipak Mazumdar RETURN
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| Hardworking, humble, earnest and kind, a cheerful peasant woman in her middle years from Germany, Sister Carista was nun in charge of the vegetable cellar at St. Vincent's Orphanage. Her back ever bent in labor, the children often saw her tending to barrels of sauerkraut, the pungent odor of which, filled their nostrils, as they crossed her cellar on their way to meals on rainy days. In very broken English, she showed her orphan help how to clean and pare the vegetables and fruit that arrived from donors to her cellar door. When in the nearly daily task of making sauerkraut, more cabbage need be shred, she'd motion to a boy and say: "Turn vonce agin das vwheel!" Turn vonce agin das vwheel!" But the words most often heard: "Zee zoo. Zee zoo", meaning "See so", caused her to be known among the boys as Zee Zoo. Whether working in the cellar or in the vegetable garden or on the entrance grounds, she always found an interlude in the afternoon to visit with her Eucharistic Lord. |
And children passing by the chapel door, often found her rapt in fervent prayer. Kneeling, with hands outstretched and eyes fixed on the tabernacle, her face shone like a mystic from of old. And now in summer, I was back in Columbus to visit my old home. Twelve years had passed since last I stepped through her cellar door. Overjoyed to see me, her face was beaming. With hands from produce dirty, she brought her hand beneath her habit to shake my own. Her hand, firm, heavy, leathery and calloused, seemed a man's. Her personality, simple, sincere, and direct, I believed I had looked into the eyes of a saint. |
Virgil Gelormino RETURN
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