against (now for) instincts

I posted poorly earlier this week. If October is unequivocally my favorite month, I try over-hard to make March the same. Ten years of phenomenal MUN experiences in St Petersburg (March 1999-2008) have lent to that sense. Prague's Bulovka hospital, where all our kids were born, supplied wonderful months of March in 1999 and 2003 as well as November 2004. I feel blessed that our kids were also born by liturgical association:

• Palm Sunday: Josef, ten years after the 1989 Palm Sunday that his grandfather had prepared for
• Ash Wednesday: Ben exactly then in 2003, launching that deepest of spiritual journeys
• Advent: Emma exactly then in 2004, growing as a raven http://lostmenagerie.blogspot.cz/2011/12/veterans-day-armistice-of-killing-time.html

So, hoping this post does better than the last (Ben's recent sculpture all the difference):

            worth the wait

Tomorrow is Saint Joseph’s Day,

any way it’s spelled—we’re all

abbreviations of names we half-

create and often don’t appreciate

until the chills of March, where

winter winds must bluster still to

humble hopes of spring, the same

routine the storks endure while

knowing where their nest will be,

beyond conditions of the chimney.

I’m bound to pace a million miles

this time of year, mapping out the

Lenten paths of heritage and other

things austere, indoor track and

outdoor field, studies in between,

dealing with the heart attack that

brought me to my knees, driving to

the hospital where Hrabal last fed

birds, lighting prayers at Tikhvin,

and what those artists mean to me.

Enter in the need for Holy Family.

God knows we’re incomplete, from

Adam on to Eve, from brothers not

being keepers and sisters seldom

seen. We’re prone to Ides-of-March

ourselves until eternity. That child

in Mary’s arms is vulnerable and ill-

equipped to temper what we face;

Joseph shrugs in disbelief, and yet

he’s there to make it worth the wait.