Peanut Plant

George Washington Carver kept no grudges or harbored

Doubt about the Great Presence found speaking in ordered

Creation confounding lettered men with beaker test

Tube and flask whom would not exclude God like all the rest

Tried truth in the classroom and taught through Truth men conquered

-Gary Edward Geraci

St. Benedict’s Cabin on Mulberry Fork

St. Benedict’s Cabin on Mulberry Fork

On the day that Spring was about to spring forth 

A rustling breeze flipped my pages and bird songs

And sun beams poked through morn clouds and roaring tree throngs

The rolling green pasture from my back porch stocked 

With content cattle like cotton specks crows squawked

And clamored while the water below gently

Slugged onward through the forest floor and densely

Dark clouds gathered in the north the birds did not care

And neither do I because you must be aware

That today is the day that Spring will spring forth

At St. Benedict’s Cabin on Mulberry Fork.

-Gary Edward Geraci

Wire Like Shoots Stretching Skyward

Wire like shoots, strands of green plants live in asphalt cracks, stretching skyward, briefly kissed by

Sun rays, animated; these perishable souls seek a certain way of existing

Before being scalded by the high heat of the afternoon, exposed, then trampled down

By the tread of a passing street truck; gone forever, annihilated; yet men too

Stretch skyward, multiply, like wire like shoots yet with souls that never perish, don’t die:

Souls, continued forever. “But where?” you inquire, “In what kind of society?”

To wonder yet to no longer wonder of the miracle of each new life: strange,

Unique, a human life! With gift of soul! “Should we ever tire of this?” Yet might One

Of human birth, cloaked in the absence of labor pains, but with wire like shoots grasp,

Possess a Divine Soul? Flesh, like wire like shoots, our flesh, and One Eternal Soul!

-Gary Edward Geraci 

“Incarnational Realities Among Strife, Illness and Evil”

both signs and causes

of Grace: seven sacraments

effect what they mean

-Gary Edward Geraci 

Fraternity

To the traveling and working Filipino migrant with a fervent love of God to light the way and spread His word

1

Far from country so they sail,

What ails the aged and the frail;

Healing both body and soul —

God’s gift, the Filipino.

2

Kept close to Christ and the pope:

The world’s best workforce, full of hope;

All in Abu Dhabi,

Arabian, Filipino.

3

Mass, it’s as if it’s been stilled,

Massive cathedrals once were filled;

But wait, a resurgence:

Pack the Church, Filipino!

4

Long love for both young and old,

Hearts to heal a hardened household:

Poised, PacMan’s power punch,

Las Vegas, Filipino.

5

Closet cloistered, folded hands,

A burning bush in salted sands,

Good and gone but your prayer,

Saved my life, Filipino!

• Gary Edward Geraci