One Winter

In the evening of life we will be judged on love alone.
                                                                        ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
Recalling the words of Uriel that morn–
Your understanding has utterly failed
regarding this world, do you think you can
comprehend the way of the Most High?
He ate his bread in utter desolation.
The old monk walked
through the eucalyptus grove
down a footpath to the sea.
A storm off the Pacific
moaned its own sad cry.
Making his way to the edge
of Santa Lucia mountains
on a sparse expanse of coast,
he saw shadows on a foray.
A lioness and her cub
secreted in fog stood still.
Nothing was between the monk
and them but blanketed fog,
the scent of winter chaparral,
and a vow of love.
He retraced the footpath
returning to the monastery
with calm consolation.
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Mona T. Lydon-Rochelle was born in Massachusetts and grew up in the coastal Northeast, the Philippines, and Washington, D.C. She is a writer, epidemiologist, and midwife and was a professor at the University of Washington and the University of College Cork, Ireland. Her poetry collections include On the Brink of the Sea, and Mourning Dove. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband.

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