Let Love Serve

With Mary in the Visitation

Immaculate within, without,
while kneeling at her woman’s work,
the maiden draped in white and blue
gapes upward at cascading light;
says yes, then leaps upon an ass
without a thought for her own good
and rides into the dusty hills
to care, keep house for someone old.

So may I, when this sere mound
of self is showered by a cloud
or watered by a river deep,
with wild abandonment of care
rise quickly, madly into life
with heavy fruit in open arms
to feed all who are brought my way
upon a secret morning breeze.

This I believe, O dove above.
If I won’t serve, then I don’t love.

My favorite Mystery of the Rosary is the Visitation, which because it falls on Sunday this year is not being observed formally by the Church. But anyway, here is what it means to me, whatever the bishops’ calendar says.