We will all be clean

For the Monday after Easter

I stand in the kitchen slowly unloading the dishwasher

waiting for the water to boil

to brew the coffee and sit

and wait for the Spirit

who comes

sometimes.

Or is always there and it's just me

who sometimes shows up.

She labors to deliver her son already

dead by a tangled cord.

The name she felt an urgency to give

him just a few days ago will now

be whispered in grief as

a new kind of longing is born

in their hearts.

The cold in Nepal is made worse

by the shortage of heating gas

cut off by the conflict with those shivering on

the other side of the line.

The border is barbed with violence and bureaucrats

hostile to the hope of those who

risk the journey long to hold each other in.

Clara leaves the same hospital

swaddled and held tight in love -

into this melee of a world

where the Spirit labors for each of us

and broods over the cup, the border

and the dishes yet to be loaded.

We will all be clean.