This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Mary Lee.
Shelter
John 12:3; 20:27 -28
Shelter in your presence,
bathing your feet.
I pour the most
fragrant
whole bottle
of me; that perfume of love fills
the house of my life.
I find shelter
In your palm
when I abide
in its fissures,
broken skin,
callouses from timber;
cures that touched
chasms of fear.
Most of all,
the gory wound,
where my faults
are drowned:
mercy’s extravagance;
your heart breaking open.
Mary Lee’s poems have been published nationally and internationally, including Skylight 47; Crannóg; Orbis; The Poet’s Quest for God (anthology); The Anglican Theological Review; The 2018 Poiema Series (anthology); Poems for Patience Competition (highly commended, 2019); The Linnet’s Wings; The Galway Review 4; The Furrow; Dodging the Rain; Presence: A Journal of Spiritual Directors International; Proust (Collection 2); Adam, Eve & the Riders of the Apolcalypse (anthology); A New Ulster (website); The Wild Word (website); The Galway Review (website), and Vox Galvia. Her work has been broadcast on RTE Radio 1, A Living Word, and her poems have been cited at liturgies and retreats. Her second poetry collection, Everyday Epiphanies, was published with Kelsay Press, May 2021.
