T.S. ELIOT'S SUNDAY MORNING

Here at the docks
the snow bluffs have gone
we have not turned
the clocks back but spring
forward here at the rocks
watching the runners prepare
for the Patriot's Day marathon
awakened by scents and shadows
at T.S. Eliot's Sunday morning
as crowds here watch sports
near the baseball field
a poet sits by St. Ann's
sighting a sorry wounded swan
along the waters
near Cape Rockport
as veterinarians drape him
before he is examined
for to be all alone
is not ever easy
even with emerging sun
simmering like stars on the ocean
by the greensward pavilion
Eliot knows his memory
is not shaped but had begun
as an American son
from St. Louis
even as his wise realization
as a British high churchman
forgetting an old business so long ago
of trying by religious sublimation
to forget his disguised ego
searching between two loyalties
of state and expatriate country,
suddenly he stars to quietly sing
acknowledging the Almighty
enduring the silent chants
while clearly thinking
of his middle aged fate
from his dark pew
remembering Brother Lawrence
of is washing dishes
was his worshiping made new,
or thinking of the Little Flower
who cleaned the dirty floor
with a mop as she prayed
or finishing a thirty year task
in a sanctuary's hour
for no one need ask St. Teresa
about her ordinary ease
while writing a French diary
baring a future good fruit
of her love offering weighed
with faith ,no doubt
bending on her knees
imagining old Joseph's coat
with cuffs on his suit
of many of nature's colors
she could sew and mend,
and how he was sold
into rough slavery then freed
when his family was in need
T.S. Eliot wishing for peace
along a well known bench
at the ocean by Evergreen
he has visited before
overlooking the flowing sea
in a cathedral's miracle lore
of reaching Gentile and Jew,
recalling Odysseus
from a fiery frightening
yet smiling Circe
and of Hermes persuading
our sailor to go to Calypso
and his own hours of journey
teaching him to be enlightened
he was once a wanderer too
in a world without end.