One event from my childhood
\nleft profound repercussions in my life.
\nIt happened at a time when horrible poverty had hit our home.
\nWhy?\u00a0 I no longer remember.
\nThe reasons have long been buried along with so many other memories,
\nat the bottom of my mind, meshed in the web
\nof the thousands of things that struggle within us
\nthat we call grief, suffering, numbness, and despair.<\/p>\n
The memory that remains and which often floods my mind,
\nreminding me of so many childhood anxieties,
\nis of a bird that died.<\/p>\n
It was a goldfinch.
\nMy brother and I found the bird and adopted it
\none morning after I had served mass,
\nas I had been doing, rain or shine, since I was five,
\nat the bottom of Brault Street,
\nwhere the waters of the Maine River
\nswell up from the sewers to drench the gardens
\nand the low buildings of the Good Shepherd Convent.<\/p>\n
The bird must have escaped from a cage.
\nHe was wounded, and let us pick him up without a struggle.
\nHe became our friend, without fuss or flights of fancy,
\nlike poor people who get gifts
\nand never know how to act in order to show their gratitude.<\/p>\n
Then came the days when we were all really miserable.
\nMy mother stopped taking care of the house
\nwhich she had always tried so hard
\nto keep from looking like a slum:
\n\u201cPut this away, pick that up, sweep the floor,
\nget out of my way while I clean the table…\u201d<\/p>\n
It was our only table Poor mother!\u00a0 After supper, and on days when there was no school, But at the time I\u2019m speaking of, Were we still going to school?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know anymore. It seemed that time stood still for us, How long did this last? No, it couldn\u2019t have been more than a few days. Then one day, the sun showed up again I no longer remember. And then we noticed that the bird had stopped singing. Was it because, in our time of need, \u201cIf God existed!\u00a0 No, it\u2019s better that he doesn\u2019t exist, The bird, in any case, had died. Apparently, the time of trouble was over, People and things had to return to normal, Even between her and us children, As for us, we found our way back But can you just pick up the pieces again that way, How can you keep starting over When over and over again, time grinds abruptly to a halt,<\/em> Is it possible to believe in an orderly life, As I write these last words, With each tragedy and catastrophe, That\u2019s why, now and forever–on earth as in heaven– My friends, whoever we may be, we hail love. One event from my childhood left profound repercussions in my life. It happened at a time when horrible poverty had (…) Read more
\nwhere mother got vegetables and meals ready,
\nstacked the dishes and laid out the knives and forks.<\/em>
\nOn the same table, we did our homework at night,
\nor sat there reading books–which got on her nerves–
\n\u201c Aren\u2019t you through reading, when there\u2019s so much work to do? \u201d<\/p>\n
\nwe would take a bunch of roll-up Zig-Zag cigarette papers
\nand pack them in their cardboard packages
\nto earn a bit of money.
\nIs that why, to this very day, tobacco,
\nand everything associated with it, make me sick?<\/p>\n
\nwe had stopped doing even that bit of work.
\nIn the evening, we sat there before bedtime,
\nnot daring to say a word,
\nas though the mere sound of our voices
\ncould set off another catastrophe.<\/p>\n
\nI only remember my little brother, Martin,
\nwho did nothing but cry.<\/p>\n
\nand that nothing mattered anymore.
\nWe dragged through days like the living dead,
\njust surviving from one dawn to the next.<\/p>\n
\nProbably not long,
\nbut that time was so intense and terrible
\nthat it fills an exceptionally large spot
\nin my memory.<\/p>\n
\nOtherwise, as children, we would have exploded
\nand run away from our mother\u2019s suffering.
\nPerhaps we did run away from it anyway
\nfrom time to time.<\/p>\n
\nin the room where we lived,
\nthis room steeped in shadows by 4 p. m., even in summer.
\nWhat brought the sun back?
\nWas it good news, a gift, a kind word?<\/p>\n
\nBut time resumed its ordinary course again,
\nlife slowly started up–everything went back to normal.<\/p>\n
\nSilently, we looked at the cage,
\nat the friend whom we felt guilty for neglecting.
\nWhy had we forsaken him?<\/p>\n
\nhe could do nothing for us?
\nOr wasn\u2019t it more likely because when sorrow cuts too sharply,
\neverything stops–time, feelings, God.<\/p>\n
\nbecause, if he did, we\u2019d have to curse him,\u201d
\nMrs. Duburg would tell me.<\/p>\n
\nHe had starved to death.
\nLife stopped for him too–we had forgotten him.
\nJust as we had forgotten to wash,
\nto eat, to talk, to pray.<\/p>\n
\nbut things had yet to fall back into place.
\nStep by step, our mother had to resume her role
\nas a poised and confident parent.<\/p>\n
\nlike our relationships with our neighbors.
\nOur mother gradually had to take back
\nwords that she had perhaps spoken too hastily.<\/p>\n
\nirritations and misunderstandings
\nthat emerged during those hard times had to be forgotten.<\/p>\n
\nto school and to morning mass.
\nWe took up packaging cigarette papers again.
\nWe could not forget our prayers anymore.
\nWe had to wash and keep the table cleared.
\nWe had to recreate the life we had known before.<\/p>\n
\nwhen hard times come back so very often,
\nas they do in the lives of poor families?<\/p>\n
\nafter these interruptions in time,
\netched in my memory by the symbol
\nof this bird lying dead in his cage,
\nhis tiny claws curled into the air,
\nlike a tangible sign of those troubles
\nscarcely healed and already breaking out again.<\/p>\n
\nwhen events dig such deep furrows,<\/em>
\nis it possible to judge things and people as everyone else does,
\nto make up for lost time,
\nto put everything back into place?<\/p>\n
\nto build one\u2019s life, to live?
\nUnless you meet with great love in those around you,
\nI think not.<\/p>\n
\nI can\u2019t help thinking of the love
\nthat Christ offered to the disenfranchised.
\nHe had to identify with them so they could share in his love.
\nHe made himself present in their lives.
\nHe shared their condition.
\nThat\u2019s how he, the Eternal, stepped into the temporal.
\nHe also experienced time skipping a beat,
\nstanding still because of tragedies, catastrophes, and endless anxieties.
\nHe found himself caught up like the living dead
\ninside the daily lives of the wretched.<\/p>\n
\nbecause of the attacks and plots against him,
\nhe identified more and more with the poor,<\/em>
\nuntil at Golgotha,
\nhe became the first among all sufferers.
\nIt was then that love defeated misery,
\nand the poor were welcomed into Eternity.<\/p>\n
\nChrist will never again be alone:
\nwelcoming him will be welcoming all the poor,
\nhelping him will be helping them all,
\nloving him will be loving them all.<\/p>\n
\nThanks to this love,
\neven when I\u2019m shrouded in twilight, I will never forget
\nthat on a day of distress,
\ntime stood still for me and my family,
\nand that a dead bird sent the signal it had stopped.
\nWe know that, for the dispossesed,
\nlove alone will give birth to a bright dawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"