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When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe.
—Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

We know these columns, this pediment,
angels and sages serene as stone
stand at attention, embodiment
of past grandeur, for this we’ve come,
to see the marble men and maids,
the attic shape, the heifer’s march,
the ancient truth that met Keats’ gaze
and fired his poems that light the dark

Iris, at 92, is more bird
than flower, more wings
flapping than bloom
unfolding. She is not still

life, not slow motion,
but mid-flight and atwitter,
elbows and knees
in awkward poses, fragile
neck gawked in the lovely
way of a small crane
or a young duck.  

Only her lavender
pants suggest a plant,
a blossom of early spring—oh,
and the way she looks
toward the sun, stretches
as our instructor tells her to,
her back a tender stalk.

“The School Sisters of Notre Dame donate brains to
Alzheimer’s research.” —Time magazine

One morning soon
in Mankato, Minnesota,
Sister Matthia will die,
a glacial calving in the heart of God.

103, she joyfully
shuffles among an eternity of prepared rooms,
and at her passing has consented to be undressed
before the picture windows of the world.

Clothed in the plainsong of never being forgotten,
loving the Lord God with her all,
she has practiced
being a Jerusalem wall,