About the Poem
Untouched is a poem about my lovely, lonely year in central Texas. In 2010, I worked on Fort Hood as an Army public affairs intern. It was a time when I was seeking God, but also chasing after idols: romance, relationships, new experiences. Still, I consider my Texas year as the beginning of my convent journey.
Audio: Mary Rose Kreger reads.
Untouched
Aching sunlight pierces her spring window
Texas paradise, far from home.
Everything sits quietly: the chairs
At the table, the doors closed,
The slip of hallway grey and silent—
She has no one here in the
Lone Star State, and today
Finds no distractions.
Loneliness is that hollow state
That must be undone – better
To be thick with thieves and liars
Than sitting slim in an empty room.
I loved my own thieves and liars then
Let them rob me of innocence and grace
Let them whisper whatever might make me stay:
In the upstairs flat, the shuttered bedroom,
And who can blame them?
Is it stealing when you leave
Your heart wide open for plunder?
No one ever stole or lied
More to me than I did to myself:
Nine years a slave to a half-buried wound
Nine years pretending to feel nothing but joy:
Smiles on the outside, half-true at best;
Inside, a brood of vipers rest.
Yet I, wiser now, truer too,
Am kind to my young self.
She didn’t know what I know now:
That our darkness bears as much fruit
As our shine; that even slow-grown girls
Bloom bright at last.
That Someone loves her so much,
He came down and died and gave her
The brilliant Texas sky, glistening in night-splendor
Pinpoints of light in a grand expanse:
Soft music to pillow her wild thoughts
And prairie grass to enshrine her good body.
So good because He made it just for her –
And He is there and loves her when the rest
Have turned away – when first one and then
The other have rejected her for
Fairer beauties. No more alone, no more
Untouched: His finger melts my insides
And quenches my panting spirit – I am alive in
Him, and can never be alone again.
*Originally published on www.monasteryinmyheart.com.