by Cyril O’Regan 

She is the thief that takes from you

What you don’t have, that has nothing

To do with you.

Who gives you back to yourself

So you are yourself for the first time.

She is the one who burns the cluttered house

Until you spring up the promise of the rose

In the impossibly green garden.

It is she who allows you to find intimations

In the water laughing on the stones

The wings flashing blue before the averted eye

In the early Fall evening releasing its burden

Of shadows under the hill.

She is the insistent water wearing down

The stone of refusal to play.

She says: the candle flickers

But will not flicker out.

The light is always more than yesterday.

She is the one who thanks you lavishly

For having come with empty hands.

Cyril O’Regan is the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.

Image Credit: J.M.W. Turner, Trees in a Strong Breeze with Blustery Clouds, 1823–6, Tate (D36318), digital image © Tate released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)