Two Memories of St. Michael's

“Brugse River”, by Ricky Sadiosa

I.
A sunny Sunday, last of the weekend,
gliding down Garden Road, I pass
St. Joseph’s and the echo of organ
and drone of voices pulls me into the past.

St. Michael’s Elementary School,
circa ’68. Try to imagine
those stern-faced nuns,
with their long black habits, and
rosary beads dangling in the wind,
playing tennis.

How else to have
such a powerful backhand stroke?
Sister Rose, the mother superior,
had a particularly lethal smash.

Slowly she’d walk, between rows of desks
giving us all the stink-eye.
You’d wait then, just as she passed,
her back to you now, you’d make a face
and pow! She’d backhand smack the back
o’ your thick head hard enough
to lift you out of your seat.

I saw that, she’d say, not turning around,
with the eyes God put in the back of my head
to watch over the bad deeds
of sinful little miscreants like you.

Does she really have eyes
in the back of her head?
One trembling little child asked
no one in particular.

God made many miracles, she said,
not all are listed in the book of the saints.

II.
At Beyrouth Bistro between beer and bites
of doner-kebab I notice, a fellow customer,
with black smudges above his brow.
And recall again the mumbled Latin of my youth.
Memento, homo, quia pulvis es,
et in pulverem reverteris.

The priest is pushing,
pushing,
Remember man that thou art dust
pushing his thick thumb
And unto dust 
pushing his thick thumb into my forehead
Remember man that thou art dust

And unto dust thou shalt return.
I remember this because,
It’s the only thing
that priest ever said
that wasn’t a lie.

---

D.J. Hamilton’s book of poems, The Hummingbird Sometimes Flies Backwards, won the Proverse Prize. He has also written a chapbook, Firecrackers #2 (out of print) and has won awards in Washington State and New York for poems, plays and play directing. His poems have appeared in Tentacle, Ofi Press; Repentino; Dalmoma, Firecrackers, Bumbershoot Anthology, Compages, and other publications. He has been a featured reader at the Hong Kong Literary Festival and is a frequent MC at the Peel Street Poetry Wednesday night gatherings. Hamilton grew up in Wisconsin and later lived in Seattle and in Port Townsend, Washington. An expat for over 20 years, he has now lived in Hong Kong for over 8 years. (After 12 years in Mexico and one very long year in Mainland China.) He considers himself as a US-Mexico-Hong Kong writer.