blind from birth, she
could tell the difference
between the odor of chrysanthemums and tulips,
and remember her first whiff of both

she could identify
the scent of her brother
in a groping group
of sweaty brutes

she knew
her nose was her biographer
collecting memories, visions
her eyes could not

she studied biology
only to discover her compendium
of smells originated in a space infinitely
smaller than a fly's eye

a few molecules
devoted to identifying ham,
the rich smokey meat
of her first Easter

another clump to help her hold
the faint smell of perfume which lingered
in the room hours after
her mother passed

and who knew what atoms,
what cells, what curse of chemistry
forced her to recall, most of all, the sweet scent
of her newborn's hair,

the few seconds she held him,
after his heart stopped, and they took him
and placed him in a smooth, cold box, where sight,
sound and smell were locked forever

A choking and desperate voice reached my ear this morning. It was a friend. One of my best friends who lives in Michigan.
What she said was barely intelligible...

"Cath... Cathy... I'M D...YING!
C..C..CAN'T B... (cough) B...BR... BREATHE!
(cough. .. cough. .. cough. ..)"

Immediately I knew I had to be calm. I had to get her anxiety level down. In a very soothing voice I stated...

"Baby, you have to calm down. Sit down in front of a fan... slow your breathing. THEN I WANT YOU TO JUST LISTEN & AGREE...

I said a five-minute prayer with her. I first praised God for the miracle that He was going to bring about. For His miraculous nature. For his Power and Glory! I said I wanted to glorify Him with the miraculous healing that was about to take place!

Within 2 minutes she was breathing easier. She was not coughing as badly. And she could talk. Then I instructed her to go lie down with the fan on her and her back propped with pillows...

I called two friends to pray with me on a conference call. We all prayed together. We prayed like our own lives were depending on it! We prayed the Word of God...

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man (woman) availeth much."
James 5:16 KJB

I called my friend 30 minutes later. She had been healed! She still had the congestion, but was calmly coughing that up too! She was beginning to blow the congestion from her infected sinuses!

So don't tell me God is no longer in the healing business. He most definitely is...!!!


♡ Catherine

the gray grasses sang sweet songs,
without even a breeze to move them
the coyote howls were marrow yellow,
crimson, as their sour colors sifted
into the night

lightning streaked my charcoal
sky, and I could taste it, a salted butter
that tickled the throat on the way down,
the sonic booms it hatched smelled of baked bread,
and I hungered for more  

then a white owl spoke to me,
but I did not hear it call my name
no, not mine--though its hoots formed ice,
chunks which pummeled me, froze me
to the bone

the waters ring red
with the ferrous clay from these plains
brutish brown on cloud cluttered days
caramel during floods

my feet know nothing
of water moccasins, though
a rattler nipped an ankle on these banks
a million years ago

feet don't recall
they slip into the cool tickling stream
innocent, not looking for a Baptismal
though the serpents are ever present

slithering in the depths
just beyond my eyes, only a few silt filled steps
from my ten toes, waiting--wanting fallible
flesh to slip within their sights

where there will be no
original naked temptation, only the striking,
the ******* venom, and the second fall
from grace, without woman to blame

he eschewed the label,
“Native American,” for he was *****,
and he wasn't ashamed he liked his spirits
dollar wine worked as well

cirrhosis was a family trait
though he didn't learn the word until an army doc
admonished him, saying he would earn the curse
by 45, if he kept it up

and he did, even more after that crazy
Asian war, where he killed a half dozen men
they called yellow, though to Walter, they looked
to be his emaciated brown cousins

he could stand tall, straight
with a pint of rot gut in him, burning
his belly, but not causing his head to spin
though it helped him block them out:

those he did not know; those he
slaughtered like lambs with the gun they issued him;
those who inhabited a space just behind his eyes
whenever they closed, night or day

someone found him, in his pickup bed
dead from exposure, from too many years
on the bottle, too many dreams he tried to drown
and too many ghosts to haunt his nights

Gallup, New Mexico, 1999

I am prey to the unyielding Sun
here in this open field
void of shade
holding precious pieces
untouched for 140 years
200 acres of Virginia farmland beneath my feet
where bullets flew
where strong men screamed
and the soil looked as if it had rained blood
death can come quickly or painfully slow

A soldier rips the Eagle breastplate from his chest
and throws it to the ground where I am standing
and here in the sweltering heat
of a calm June afternoon
I pull it from its resting place
no longer shining
140 years removed
from the failing heart
beneath it

.

He sits on a hill
crying tears of rejection
Searching for love
but to chase it away

Calling the clouds
hanging low in the heavens
Blind to the light
in its abstract display

There all alone
hearing voices on breezes
Swears it is him
they are talking about

Recording echoes
on pages of reasons
Counting each one
on his fingers of doubt

Feeling the sweat
as it drips past his hairline
Filling the cracks
that have formed on his skin

Drowning the dreams
of the flooded temptations
Closing his eyes
just to try once again

Falling apart,
tiny pieces now crumble
Pebbles of life
cast to reaches below

Back to the earth
if the soil will have him
Maybe this time
something better will grow