Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti comes along Peoria Street
     every morning at nine o'clock
With kindling wood piled on top of her head, her eyes
     looking straight ahead to find the way for her old feet.
Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, whose
     husband was killed in a tunnel explosion through
     the negligence of a fellow-servant,
Works ten hours a day, sometimes twelve, picking onions
     for Jasper on the Bowmanville road.
She takes a street car at half-past five in the morning,
     Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti does,
And gets back from Jasper's with cash for her day's
     work, between nine and ten o'clock at night.
Last week she got eight cents a box, Mrs. Pietro
     Giovannitti, picking onions for Jasper,
But this week Jasper dropped the pay to six cents a
     box because so many women and girls were answering
     the ads in the Daily News.
Jasper belongs to an Episcopal church in Ravenswood
     and on certain Sundays
He enjoys chanting the Nicene creed with his daughters
     on each side of him joining their voices with his.
If the preacher repeats old sermons of a Sunday, Jasper's
     mind wanders to his 700-acre farm and how he
     can make it produce more efficiently
And sometimes he speculates on whether he could word
     an ad in the Daily News so it would bring more
     women and girls out to his farm and reduce operating
     costs.
Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti is far from desperate about life;
     her joy is in a child she knows will arrive to her in
     three months.
And now while these are the pictures for today there are
     other pictures of the Giovannitti people I could give
     you for to-morrow,
And how some of them go to the county agent on winter
     mornings with their baskets for beans and cornmeal
     and molasses.
I listen to fellows saying here's good stuff for a novel or
     it might be worked up into a good play.
I say there's no dramatist living can put old Mrs.
     Gabrielle Giovannitti into a play with that kindling
     wood piled on top of her head coming along Peoria
     Street nine o'clock in the morning.

A poetic reflection from my blog--
I have been reflecting this weekend on why we create space for Good Friday and Easter Sunday in our calendars and our minds but skip over Saturday. What I have come to realize is that we as people are so locked into our own experiences and our perceptions of what is happening around us that we remember the visible Gospel work of Christ and not the invisible.

Christ lived a visible life. He spoke in streets, from boats, on mountainsides, and in temples. He did miracles in private and public, depending on the need. He healed a man's servant from afar and healed a few men's friend from paralysis in front of a full room.

Christ died a visible death. He was hung out and hung up to die, strapped and nailed down to a cross raised on a rocky hilltop, bleeding and vulnerable for all to see. While much of His pain is unknowable and unseen, His death and anguish were cruel and yet necessarily public.

Christ rose a visible resurrection! The entry was open, the stone moved, the wrappings empty, and the guards stunned. He appeared first to Mary, then to the men on the road, then to the twelve. Thomas, who doubted much like I do, both saw and felt the holes of his Savior's substitutionary sacrifice. Christ visibly ascended Home, shining with the love and light of His and Our Father as He physically reclaimed His heavenly throne.

But what about the time between, "It is Finished! Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit", and the resurrection? What about the lingering stench of apparent defeat and death? Did His spirit stay in the shell of the body until Sunday morning? As we do not believe the Spirit lingers in our own bodies after death, then certainly we can state that our Lord's did not linger in his mortality. If as the Nicene Creed says our Lord descended into Hell itself, why do we not pause to think about what He was going through there? He took the weight of the world's wrongs on His soul when He died, and how does that weight suddenly disappear when mortal consciousness fails, but spiritual life remains? Just what happened to Jesus Friday evening through Sunday morning?

Christ worked invisible work. My point is that though we could not see the work being done, the spirit of our Lord Jesus was as eternally living and active during temporal death as his word, and the other two members of the Godhead. While His body was in the tomb, His soul was living an eternal weight of turmoil to free us. Eternity was our punishment, and so in three short days, eternity for us He bore. He not only took our grievous problem to the cross, He paid for our physical and full spiritual punishment as well.

Oh Christian, remember today the invisible scenes of the Gospel story.
The world once lived in the tension of the in-between, in the three-day-exhale of a dead Savior before the sudden breathe of Eternal Life with the Father for us and our Precious Co-heir forever. Linger a while in Saturday, in the thought of a spiritually redeeming yet physically lifeless corpse in a tomb, in just how much was needed to save your eternal soul from it's eternal and fully earned punishment, and in the tension of the in-between. For as we linger for but a day, our salvation is for an eternity. As we reflect on our brokenness on Him for a moment, our healing in Him is forever. As we dwell on the severity of our need for Grace, Grace becomes all the more beautiful and amazing.
Hallelujah, He broke the tension! Hallelujah, the soul of our Savior returned to it's shell and He being one in body and spirit walked out of His, and our, tomb once and for all. Hallelujah, He is working invisibly even now to bring us back to Him, and when He returns, remember the immortal truth that every eye shall see Him- Our King, Our Savior, Our Good Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Application-- On this day roughly 2,000 years ago, Christ was doing the dirtiest, darkest, most unseen, and most mysterious work, to save us. If you today feel like your Savior is dead and gone from your life, remember that unseen work he did for you on Easter Saturday. Just because you can't see, feel, or know in the moment does not mean that Christ isn't hard at work for you even still. Wait but a little while longer, and see as He reveals the glorious work He has been doing all for you all along. As Romans 8:28 promises, He is working all things together for the good of those who love Him. We may not see the good now, but there will come a day when the unknown sacrifices of Our Lord manifest as known blessings for our souls. We will see Sunday morning.

Bethlehem is still glowing
Everyone loves a baby story especially this one he was born for the whole human family yes he threw his arms about kicked his feet
Smiled back at mother and all those that looked on in adoration but in his heart a tiny love burst into a small flame it also glowed
With light the echo of the angels singing to Sheppard boys on those dark Judean hills it has survived, a darker night their voices pierced
His love light and their song has circled the Globe all lands and islands of the sea have felt the effects yes he cried as a baby as babys
Do but as a man untold tears some recorded he wept for Jerusalem saying you didn’t know your time of visitation know not that I
Would have gathered you as a hen does her chicks he remembered his birth place a stable the animals were in the presence of him who
Created them even chickens He as the living word says all things were made by him and for him oneness truth is shown in that and
Other places we must worship in spirit and in truth not a trinity that was coined by Tertullian in (c.155-230) at the Nicene council you
Can’t take a man’s account go to the unerring word more tears are described Jesus wept at Lazarus tomb those tears you have wept at
the grave of your loved one they meant a lot to you well they mean a lot to God his word says he captured them and keeps them in a
Bottle why because he won’t forget your pain their deaths are honored in heaven not just in a newspaper it says you are engraved in
The palms of his hands think you’re not loved and alone right beneath the very complete essence of who you are and ever will be is
Nail prints that put that and all other contradictions to rest forever and if in the sad event your parents forget you which happens
In the weakness or outright cruelty that’s when God says he put you in his hands you are never forgotten the babies cooing turned to
Words that were added to tears and at Gethsemane through agony that love alone produced his sweat fell as great drops of blood
Dear one don’t let the devil or this world stomp, you are blood bought the stable became a cross its shadow and its light reaches every
Hidden place of pain sorrow, rejection, or abuse ****** or physical nothing can triumph over love just one thing unbelief Jesus him self
Said I can’t do mighty works or miracles here because of your unbelief got a mountain move it got an ocean walk over it like Peter
Oh everyone knows that was back then a young mother was distraught she lived in the Seattle area the whole world was pressing her
Down she was finished lose the children become a faceless waif a vagabond or like the man without a country no place to belong one
Problem the children playing in the front yard she setting on the porch in despair then the children screamed it wasn’t a drive by it was
A walk by mommy mommy it’s Jesus and it was far from Bethlehem she saw him too and he was smiling all tyrannical grip of despair
Died in his living presence from total supposed defeat to victory and fulfilled life he knows where you live he will be with you for
Christmas but also the whole year and especially when sorrow and tears flow unbidden he is the man of sorrows but he gives joy and
Comfort for now and forever. Merry Christmas

(smells kinda funny in here)

Words:

Behold the Lamb of God, Exit, Please turn
The air-conditioner off, NO SMOKING PLEASE
One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
Nicene Creed, 6th Grade Classroom, On this Rock

Things:

Crucifix, thermostat, coffee machine
American flag in a flower vase
Clock, napkins, chairs, a misplaced plastic fork
And folding tables unfolded to the light

Sounds:

A choir of refrigerators out of tune
With each other, and with Ordinary Time

Yours truly issuing a deafening rebel yell
bursting forth with such might
courtesy cooking under pressure
analogous to volcanic upswell,
forcing me quickly to flap vestigial wings
(at the speed of sound)
while simultaneously karaoking William Tell

overture apple lied courtesy top of the line
supra-aural ('over the ear') headphones
since altruistic anonymous
philanthropist gifted me
I bought the most expensive,
which enveloped me
analogous to pumpkin shell

essentially vacuum or void created
hands free contraption
settled, and kick/jump started,
and bathed noggin
silencing external cacophony,
whereby virtual realm didst quell
chaos assaulting, bombarding,

and enfilading sixty
plus shades of gray matter
like bats out of hell
swarming infidel locked alone in his cell,
who notified beefy warden,
he (the prisoner) wanted sustenance
by wantonly ringing a cowbell.

Out of wedlock philanderer
condemned did breed
tasting verboten fruits thee did buzzfeed,
when clear as water requisite
Nicene dance creed
deemed out of compliance
heinous née violation
in sum re: siring offspring
necessitates extreme unction
viz hits fallen into utter adulterer disgrace

before pledging one's troth
analogous to insubordination
thus life sentence decreed
blithely humming along
riding ******* (qua absent prophylactics
during heat of the moment) abomination
begetting children deprived; freed
spermatophytes liquidated
courtesy ***** goat ****
before sanctified nuptial coda agreed
registers as fate worse

than hearing one's death knell
from deep within the bowels of Earth,
yet now I play the devil's advocate,
and claim what more precious miracle than
experiencing (namely participating)
planting seeds of life within womb
allowing, enabling, and providing
deliberate propagation ideally
of healthy human species
warranting ******* when ovulation
most favorable to fertilization.

Rumspringa extant within/
without Amish youth world wide
impossible mission despite
scriptural strictures rightly stride
to put a lid on libidinal drive
analogous to holding back the tide viz
celibacy as restraint against
pang of **** ought best be granted liberty,
an emerging truth nationwide
a state of concupiscent nature
whether hetero or homosexual
one beast of burden an adolescent
ought not be forced to hide
similar to severe imposition of apartheid.

Once union of two
sexually latent human beings
looses gametes, which
unsurprisingly yield zygote
when without absolute zero
doubt pregnancy occurs
gravid state cannot be
shrugged off nor ignored.

No matter whether precocious post pubescents,
or legally aged coupled partners
salient proactive investment measures wise
such as ultrasound signaling healthy gestation
validation of impending motherhood
constituting testing blood for hCG results
in earliest detection of pregnancy
subsequently witnessing barenaked lady
exhibiting maternal physiological transformations
courtesy haploid gametes
rendering woman with child,
whereby abdominal area balloons in girth.

Only twenty two days after conception
or five weeks and one day gestation,
the embryo's heart starts beating
ultrasound evinces whooshing sound
triggering perceptible unsuppressed mirth

Prenatal visits also important precaution
to keep tabs on presence of vital signs
of unborn baby.

In chorionic villus sampling CVS,
a sample of tissue is taken from the placenta.
The main advantage
of having CVS over amniocentesis?
CVS is done earlier than amniocentesis,
between 10 and 13 weeks of pregnancy.
The chance of miscarriage with CVS
slightly higher than chance
of miscarriage with amniocentesis.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   My New Career as a Doorman

                “The Doors! The Doors! In wisdom let us attend!”

               -in the Orthodox liturgy just before the Nicene Creed

I used to light a candle for you before Mass
With a prayer that ascended to Heaven
For as long as the candle remained lit
Even after everyone departed, deep into the night

Now I open the door for you before Mass
Even though you’re not here, so does that count?
With age I am clumsy in so many things
But I can open the door and say hello

And every candle I ever lit for you
Still shines