St. Teresa Slips Through Time

Pope Gregory XIII declared
A new calendar in 1582
To bring Easter into alignment
With nature's own sense of timings
To begin October 4th of that year
Eleven days would disappear
At least in Catholic countries
The Protestants crying foul
Until another route brought
Them into planetary position
The Orthodox remaining
Behind in Julian fashion.

It was late on Oct 4th 1582
Or early the next morning
St. Teresa said to her Beloved
"it is time to move on"
And bidding farewell she
Went forth to meet Him
Whom she had always sought
Time now leaps forth with her passage
October 15th having just begun.

Ingenious she was to slip between
These calendar changes we have now
In the twinkling of the old into new
The fourth followed by the fifteenth
Henceforth to be known as her feastday
As I kick through the leaves
This October 5th, golden now
The season releasing its leafy garments
Strewn in almost reckless abandon
On the street as my footsteps
Loud in the dryness of the leaves
To the church as darkness gently falls
The red and blue sanctuary lamps
Flicker in the solemn time spent

I follow Teresa in my thoughts, she
My mentor from beginning times
Guiding my steps along the way
That has often been perilous and steep
I cheer her passage between time's reckoning
Looking up into the clear night sky
In the silent homeward walk
A shooting star across my horizon
Heading west bright and swift
I sense her spirit waving in the glimpse
From beyond this vale of time.