Mattye

“A word or a smile is often enough to put fresh life in a despondent soul.”
― St. Thérèse de Lisieux

“Soeur Marie Emelie"

Soeur Marie Emelie
is little and very old:
her eyes are onyx,
and her cheeks vermilion,
her apron wide and kind
and cobalt blue.

She comforts
generations and generations
of children,
who are
"new"
at the convent school.
When they are eight,
they are already up to her shoulder,
they grow up and go into the world,
she remains,
forever,
always incredibly old,
but incredibly never older...
She has an affinity with the hens,
When a hen dies,she sits down on a bench and cries,
she is the only grown-up, whose tears
are not frightening tears.
Children can weep without shame,
at her side...
Soeur Marie Emelie...
her apron as wide and kind
as skies on a summer day
and as clean and blue.”
― Caryll Houselander, Flowering Tree

“Most people know the sheer wonder that goes with falling in love, how not only does everything in heaven and earth become new, but the lover himself becomes new. It is literally like the sap rising in the tree, putting forth new green shoots of life.”
― Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God

“I wanted to shut my mind, that my thoughts might close
on my own peace, I wanted to close
the peace of my love in my heart
like dew in a dark rose."
From "Philip Speaks”
― Caryll Houselander, Flowering Tree