Meditations in Barahona
The frame may be
tarnished;
but the mirror
stayed polished.
Sheila stood
like a wind-wrung tree.
Life's not easy
with age, nor more refined.
She held on to
faith and clung to the Vine.
Her voice, like
a deceptive breeze,
calmed souls
with fresh, morning air,
then stirred
them up with cloudbursts of prayer.
Her words, like
the persistent sea,
smoothed jagged
hearts with free-flowing ease.
Even Peron's
tall boys had no force
to match the
twinkle of her eyes.
Sheila once sat
in an airport with boxes of Books
her beloved
Guardian had told her to take..
Her orders came
from the Commander-in Chief,
so what could
she do but sit and wait?
As hours passed,
her whimpering gaze
melted the steel
hearts of the Argentine guards,
who ordered her
through Books and all.
When fate is
divine, who can escape?
Sheila found her
home on the Española coast,
island of the
"black republics" divinely blessed;
which the
Master's Plan had "especially" stressed.
She built her
refuge near the palace gates.
Under siege, her
battles waged on canvas--
splashes of sea
and sand; landscapes of struggles
in the faces of
the men. She taught UN troops
about the Source
of all answers,
the Maker of all
questions.
Sheila was
"dry in the sea."
"Don't
think that a person becomes wise
with age,"
she advised.
"Wisdom
comes through prayer."
Rays of sunlight
split the clouds
and appeared in
her face.
Her eyes
reflected peace;
I detected that
her pleas
about life's
"why's" had all been satisfied,
except why the
heroines had to wither away
like dried up
prunes,
as bed-ridden
invalids devoid of speech.
Caswell and
Agnes among them.
She didn't want
to go like that.
"One hour's
reflection is worth
seventy years of
pious worship..."
a tradition
goes.
Then who knows
what seventy
years of reflection
and service is
worth.?
-- C. S.
Cholas
dedicated to
Sheila Rice-Wray,
Barahona
Bahá'í winter school, 1983
