This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is an ekphrastic based on Lu Hongnian’s “Jesus with the Woman at the Well” by Jeanna Cooper.
Past the Gates
A steady stream runs
out from the unchanged mountain
peaks and past the gates.
Beyond the city,
beyond its rolling stone wall,
a domestic task
met with peace. Her rope
slackens her attention turned
to Him, His knowledge–
Her pail rests against
the earth. Stillness amidst a
stirring, she looks up–
His hand raised in a blessing,
His translucent halo shines.
Jeanna Cooper graduated from Thomas More College in Merrimack, New Hampshire, in 2008 with a Bachelor’s degree in Literature. She currently lives in the New River Valley of Virginia with her husband and six daughters.
