Catholic boy of the 1950's; early 60's, I was taught to make two visits - to the Blessed Sacrament, reserved in the church tabernacle, and to the sick and imprisoned, counted among the Corporal Works of Mercy.
What's to argue with any of that! But I make a daily visit to the waterway on the property here - a tributary that runs through the Hemlock and White Pine and down to the Delaware River, less than a mile away. Here's a photo with the early morning sun reflecting nicely, and my personal reflecting.
What do I call you
as you watercourse here:
in and around
woods,
fields,
the swampy place?
Are you
stream,
streamlet or
brook,
rivulet,
rivoletto,
runnel or
rill?
The mountain man calls you,
Shehawken Creek;
running down to the river through
New York,
Pennsylvania,
New Jersey and
Delaware -
white capped during the April melt;
lazy in August.
Did the Munsee warriors fish you?
Their children come here to wade and play?
I see footprints in the snow along your way:
the black bear,
the deer and her fawn,
the turkey,
porcupine,
field mouse
and fox.
And what's your word for me today?
I'll listen,
heard bubbling
through the thickening ice:
That I must keep running as well -
from the conspiring,
the greed,
the shade.
But then ~
to run to Bethlehem,
the inner,
personal place,
that unique Christ-self,
born each day ~
to live truthfully,
beautifully and
well.
Father Stephen P. Morris
