Lay for the Day 9th March

The feast of Saint Frances of Rome (1384–1440), a devout, humble and long-suffering woman who had wished to be a nun, but was married off at the age of thirteen. She devoted her life, outside her family duties, to the relief of the poor. Among the visions and visitations of her life was her continuous awareness, for several years, of the presence of her guardian angel. Perhaps for this reason, Pope Pius XI made her the patron saint of motorists. She was widowed four years before her own death, and gave the last of her life to the lay religious community which she had founded. She is also a patron saint of widows.

Absence

After the last rook’s loud clamour,
the pigeons’ last fat muted notes,
only the hum and drone of homing cars
drifts to us over the river.

The lights shoot out, rounding the ridge.
My shadow like something hunted
ducks across the unlit wall behind me,
the pastoral etchings he chose.

She sips a cold, black, bitter cup
of coffee, shudders, hugs her arms.
The girls aren’t back from school. The house falls still,
thumb rubbing absence of a ring.

His own lights miss the tranquil gate,
the gnarled willow in gilded frames
by miles. They’re prying the mist-filling air
of another shire, a changed choice.

John Gibbens, from Characters: One Life

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