(on her feast day, Oct. 15)

Watering the garden of the soul
helps it grow, she said, like
the initial strain of pulling a
full bucket up from a well

gradually becoming easier,
as if by a God-driven pulley,
leading to effortless irrigation
by an unseen hand, and,

eventually, oh, ecstasy—
rain falling from heaven,
no human intervention
needed. This from a woman

who cradled her nephew,
crushed by a collapsed
building, until he returned
to life.

And I see her, this saint,
mourning a dead loved
one, all her years of soul-
tending prayer poured into

earnest supplication, as
women do hourly now
amid the rubble of what
had been their lives,

holding the bodies of
beloveds, praying for
miracles, for evidence
of replenishing rain,

for acts of love.