A Prayer for Sister Ellie (At Graduation)

Ellie knows it’s not a perfect world.
She makes no pat excuses. Ellie sings
to unseen congregations as she spins.
Hers is a tight knit world.

                                                   The song is long,
I’m sure I can’t remember when first sung:
if May, or last November, even June;
a song of strong surrender, full of calm.

If Ellie has a need, she doesn’t say
and, in her way, she’s grateful. Ellie claims
her life is not important and she strains
to prove the same to me, dismiss what’s done.

And so I pray for Ellie, any wrong
I did or might have done her. Flame has gone
and we’re about to embers. Nights are long
and days gone quickly by. The end is soon.

I pray she’s not alone, nor feels great fear,
but always is serene as she has been
the times she’s given comfort; pray the sun
be always there to guide her, snow become
a warm and wooly blanket when she’s cold.

May friends be there to greet her, no more old,
and God himself give welcome when her eyes
first look beyond where eyes like ours may see.

May Ellie stand up straight, again be young
and beautiful of hair. May Richard come,
her second love, to meet her. May the scars
of childhood and of strife be set aside
and Ellie walk with all the breath she needs
across the stage to see her father smile.

May she forgive the hurts her mother gave her
and give her mother solace in a land
that’s said to be the brightest. Let her stand,
reach out for her diploma, lift her hand
to shift the golden tassel; when that’s done,
decide she needs no rest, request to come
again where help is needed: fragrant earth,
a place she loved and tended.

                                                      Give her wings
and let her fly at sunset, bat or owl,
and sing, a wren, at morning. Let her be
once more soft yarn for mending, warm of speech
and gentle, too, of touch to those who heed
the welcome in her voice; the hungry feed,
both young ones and the old who do not speak
except for eyes expectant in their need.