Our Lady of the Garden

^{i.m. Paula Merwin}

All this time, I felt like I had to describe
the things I did, and what was done to me,
how I had to wander a strange world for years,
needing to be busy, sleeping in strange beds,
searching through cities for chapels to weep in,
learning the stitches that keep a ripped heart
together for a while, when what I really need
to say is that it rained all night and morning,
and the drops were a percussion on the trees,
and after the sun rose, I saw an insect land on the railing
and take shelter, and a bird drank from a leaf.
Wild pigs exploded from the bushes where they’d hid,
and the sage in the bowl smelt of memory and musk.
A toad sat—still as any god—on the wet stone.

Credit

About this Poem

“I’d been waiting—for what felt like a few years—for a particular poem to land. One morning, while on a residency at the Merwin Conservancy on Maui, Hawai‘i, the poem arrived, with metaphors and images for grief. But even as soon as the poem came, it was clear that it was asking for much more: location, sound, birds, beasts, weather, smells, senses.”
—Pádraig Ó Tuama

Author

Pádraig Ó Tuama

Pádraig Ó Tuama is the author of several poetry collections, including The Weight of Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2026); Kitchen Hymns (Copper Canyon Press, 2025); and Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community (Canterbury Press, 2017). A poet, theologian, and conflict mediator, Ó Tuama is a professor at Yale Divinity School. He lives in Connecticut, on the ancestral lands of the Quinnipiac people.

Date Published

03/09/2026