January 25, 2017, an Ode

My Students
 Two hundred kids bussed to the March for Life.
        Worried husband and wife
wonder are they securely chaperoned?
        Their mental muscles toned
by Scripture, Confirmation, the Sacraments
        and King David’s laments
learned at each Friday Mass, oh cut them loose,
Irish and Scots children. Robert the Bruce,
         come storm forth from your grave,
so little time, so many teens to save.

Minus 25 F
 It’s Burns Day, the Conversion of St. Paul,
so it’s doubly a holy day for me.
Lord, gird my loins in sheer temerity
as with redoubled reverence I call
poet and saint from heaven’s unseen wall
where both long since passed to infinity,
unity with the Holy Trinity,
while earthbound on my frozen fields I crawl.

Westlin Winds
 Westlin Winds,
count not my sins
upon the bloomin’ heather.
The hawk and owl,
they fluff and scowl
in this inclement weather.

Though born to beg,
I’ve no sweet Peg,
no lass to lie beside me.
Though rocks may run,
melt wi’ the sun,
I’ve whiskey to betide me.

Oh wake me to
a montane view
far from this endless prairie.
The boy I knew
and bade adieu
grew old and couldn’t tarry.

—Tim Murphy