Still Pilgrim: Poems
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About this ebook
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, Ph.D., is a writer, poet, and professor. She teaches English, Creative Writing, and courses in Catholic Studies at Fordham University in New York City and serves as Associate Director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. She is also co-editor of the Curran Center’s new book series, “Studies in the Catholic Imagination: The Flannery O’Connor Trust Series,” published by Fordham University Press.
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Still Pilgrim - Angela Alaimo O'Donnell
Prologue: To Be a Pilgrim
To be a pilgrim is to ring the stones
with the clean music of your best black heels,
each click a lucky strike that sparks a fire
to see by, that lights up the long and level road
you walk with no map, no stick, no wheels
to relieve you when your feet ache and tire.
To be a pilgrim own what you own,
stuff it in your clutch, lug it in your tote,
all the heavy history you’d like to lose
nestled up against your dead mother’s shoes.
To be a pilgrim you must be a killer
of myth, a new invention of desire.
Every pilgrim is a truth-teller.
Every pilgrim is a liar.
[ I. ]
The Still Pilgrim Invents Dawn
The still pilgrim climbs the Mountain of God.
She somehow has not lost her way.
Her feet find the prints where they have trod.
The sun feels less heavy today.
She holds him in her wind-chapped hands.
She shoulders him like a child.
She hoops him along the basalt sand.
She heaves him high against the sky
where he gilds the field gold.
This never gets old.
The pilgrim watches his slow rise—
she loves the shadow show he throws—
salutes the blue and shades her eyes
and turns her back and goes.
The Still Pilgrim Visits Ellis Island
Following the footprints of my people
I think of Grandma Rose’s tiny feet.
The way she slid them into nylon socks
and walked on heels thick as chopping blocks.
My size nine pumps click across the flagstone,
my Prada bag slung loose along my hip.
I take another picture with my iPhone,
uncap my Aquafina, take a sip.
The day her ship set out from Italy
her shoes shone black as deep mine coal,
dark rock that would feed her family,
kill her husband and stain her soul.
She stood no taller than a half-grown child.
Left footprints wider than a mile.
The Still Pilgrim Recollects Her Childhood
Inside my mind there sleeps another mind,
the child mind that used to dream disaster,
collected every darkness she could find,
trembled before death and what comes