My life is one perpetual retreat.
Wall off the world for books to be adored,
Testaments Old and New, Word of the Lord
whose great librarian is the Paraclete.
Yesterday was the Feast of Christ’s baptism:
“This is my Son with whom I am well pleased,”
saith the Lord, and once when I was seized
with fervor I received the Holy Chrism.
I have at most three decades more to live,
just thirty years to sing my Savior’s praise,
seek absolution for my early ways.
Our younger selves are hardest to forgive.
