Sister Carmen Bernos de Gasztold was a Benedictine nun and gifted writer who lived from 1919 to 1995. She wrote two books giving voice to God’s animals titled “Prayers from the Ark” and “The Creatures’ Choir.” This summer I am sharing once again more of her pensive poems.

The Ark waits,

Lord,

the Ark waits on Your will,

and the sign of Your peace.

I am the dove,

simple

as the sweetness that comes from You.

The Ark waits,

Lord,

it has endured.

Let me carry it

a sprig of hope and joy,

and put, at the heart of its forsakenness,

this, in which Your love clothes me,

Grace immaculate.

Sister Carmen Bernos de Gasztold was a Benedictine nun and gifted writer who lived from 1919 to 1995. She wrote two books giving voice to God’s animals titled “Prayers from the Ark” and “The Creatures’ Choir.” This summer I am sharing once again more of her pensive poems.

Dear God,

would You take your Light

a little farther away

from me?

I am like a morsel

of cinder

and need Your night

for my heart to dare

to flicker out its feeble star:

its hope, to give to other hearts,

what can be stolen from all poverty–

a gleam of joy.

Amen.

Sister Carmen Bernos de Gasztold was a Benedictine nun and gifted writer who lived from 1919 to 1995. She wrote two books giving voice to God’s animals titled “Prayers from the Ark” and “The Creatures’ Choir.” This summer I am sharing more of her pensive poems.

God,

forever I turn in this hard crystal,

so transparent, yet I can find no way out.

Lord,

deliver me from the cramp of this water

and these terrifying things I see through it.

Put me back in the play of Your torrents,

to Your limpid springs.

Let me no longer be a little goldfish

in its prison of glass,

but a living spark

in the gentleness of Your reeds.

Amen.

Sister Carmen Bernos de Gasztold was a Benedictine nun and gifted writer who lived from 1919 to 1995. She wrote two books giving voice to God’s animals titled “Prayers from the Ark” and “The Creatures’ Choir.” This summer I am sharing once again more of her pensive poems.

Dear God,

I don’t know how to pray by myself

very well,

but will You please

protect my little nest from wind and rain?

Put a great deal of dew on the flowers,

many seeds in my way.

Make Your blue very high,

Your branches lissom;

let Your kind light stay late in the sky

and let my heart brimming with such music

that I must sing, sing, sing . . ..

Please, Lord.

Amen.