Marcella’s Eyes

Marcella was a teacher’s daughter,

I was thirteen she was sixteen

Both thinking about a religious life,

We played that crazy childhood game

Who blinks first,

After ten minutes we called it a draw,

I never saw her again,

She went on to join the convent.

Years later friends told me

That she had left her habit

And was a teaching mom,

I could have told her that

Way back when,

Looking into her eyes,

And I never donned a robe

For I saw goddesses and holiness

I knew I had to find,

Those ten minutes then,

In Marcella’s eyes.

Stephen Nesbitt ©