(Bethlehem, 399 CE)

She’s forsworn being a daughter, wife, widow, and mother;
she’s savored the roles of Christ’s bride, servant to the poor—
Now, within the matrix of her convent, Paula enjoys the solace
of celestial stirrings, as she moves in orbit among chaste sisters,

those numinous, meek creatures who drift along the corridors
like thistledown—whose silences signal a silken renunciation.
Their hymns’ sweet notes ring in her ears, syncopating time;
so, her months and years pass, a parade of spiritual devotions.

One morning, as she weeds the convent garden, she looks up
to see a sky of cirrus uncinus—a backdrop of mares’ tails
spun from delicate white filaments, curling into hooks, tufts—
and suddenly, mid-breath, she feels Christ’s touch upon her

cheek and an abundance of grace expands her lungs until
she gasps, seeing shimmering before her a dark-eyed man
smiling down at her crouched form, his body so translucent
that the clouds radiating behind him permeate his fluid form—

He floats before her in empty air and she is poised in rapt
amazement—O stunned, O dazzled, O glorious reward—
O watcher—now look—be open-eyed—be undiminished,
for joy, joy! trumpets through her veins—blows her open—