Stigmata
by Russell Rowland
He had the charisma of silence. When
one of us died, he’d pull up out front
in a funereal old black Buick the parish
let him drive, come in and sit with us
in our darkened parlor. We expected
eloquence. After he had left us, a half
hour later, we realized he had not said
a thing—still, our hearts were uplifted,
and we took thought to our own needs.
The night Myra’s family gave the order
to discontinue all extraordinary means,
and remorse rolled in with the onset of
Cheyne-Stokes breathing, there he was
at their sides—not to work miracles, or
assuage guilt—no, just to help them cry.
They say he identified so much with us,
his sheep, that whatever we suffered he
came down with too, unless it was fatal.
He felt so fiercely our Savior’s agony,
they say that each Good Friday at three
his hands and side bled sympathetically.
Russell Rowland is a church pastor and trail volunteer in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. A seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is winner of the Plainsongs Award, past winner of Old Red Kimono’s Paris Lake Poetry Contest, and twice winner of Descant’s Baskerville Publishers Poetry Prize.
by Russell Rowland
He had the charisma of silence. When
one of us died, he’d pull up out front
in a funereal old black Buick the parish
let him drive, come in and sit with us
in our darkened parlor. We expected
eloquence. After he had left us, a half
hour later, we realized he had not said
a thing—still, our hearts were uplifted,
and we took thought to our own needs.
The night Myra’s family gave the order
to discontinue all extraordinary means,
and remorse rolled in with the onset of
Cheyne-Stokes breathing, there he was
at their sides—not to work miracles, or
assuage guilt—no, just to help them cry.
They say he identified so much with us,
his sheep, that whatever we suffered he
came down with too, unless it was fatal.
He felt so fiercely our Savior’s agony,
they say that each Good Friday at three
his hands and side bled sympathetically.
Russell Rowland is a church pastor and trail volunteer in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. A seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is winner of the Plainsongs Award, past winner of Old Red Kimono’s Paris Lake Poetry Contest, and twice winner of Descant’s Baskerville Publishers Poetry Prize.