Too Slow by Brian McClorry, SJ

By Brian McClorry, SJ ©

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So slow in the formal garden

Bemused by the usual blooms

With long-life identification tags

And the scented conversations

That drift on and on, until

The still-life still-alive bird

Calls out sharp and clear as a bell -

A robin riding the top of a high red rose

So close to the garden wall where snails

Keep silence, cobwebbed in the cavity

Of a stone, too slow for the spiders,

Too slow in this shelter good for snails

To head for the sung-to hills.