She knelt beside the neatly planted rows
of cumin, dill, and mint. The clear March sky
was bright; a flock of birds flew high.
She pinched a leaf;
then, suddenly, she froze —
a voice had spoken. There was no one there.
It spoke a second time; she looked around.
“How can this be?” she asked the vacant air.
Once more it spoke, yet there was not a sound.
She paused again; her answer in her mind.
In thirty years and three, her words would find
an echo: “Not my will, but thine be done,”
said in another garden by her son,
while three friends slept.
So here none heard her words —
except an angel, a high flight of birds,
and three neat rows of cumin, mint, and dill:
“Be it to me according to thy will.”
Image above (and on front-page mastheads): Ave Maria by Lisa Bell.
Currently appearing in ECVA’s exhibition: Women At Prayer.
Words above: A Poem for Annunciation
by Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG (April 7, 1989)