through a lens darkly
- through a lens darkly
Did you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die? Oh, no not I. I will survive.
i
grace is not logicalit is bony yet renegade flexiblefor those who choose whatever it takes with a granite willlike the myth of the south: scarlett o’haraa secular saint of sortswho could will one thingfor she was like all the women who came before and after herwhose desperate pulse echoed a dangerous heart
ii
she was the war’s childfierce with her tightfisted vow—survival became the only thing worth living forthat was the grace a defiant blaze to go on with lifeeven when the life she knew had died [End Page 256]
Lou Ella Hickman, member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, has had her poems and articles widely published in numerous magazines. One of her poems was published in the anthology After Shocks: Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo. Her first book of poetry, she: robed and wordless, published by Press 53, was released in the fall of 2015.
