I’m quite proud of the fact that both Catholics and pagans have told me that they really like this poem…it can definitely be read as a Marian prayer, but it can also be plausibly read as directed to a mother goddess. This was intentional, and it’s notable that I wrote it around the same time I started writing hymns to Hestia, who isn’t a mother—the myths suggest that she’s asexual and aromantic, and doesn’t have children—but who I do associate with responsibility for “simple things.”
“To Our Lady of Simple Things”
31 March 2018, in College Park, Maryland
O Queen of Heaven, whose cloak is the sky and stars,
Mother of all things, visible and invisible:
Are you not also Our Lady of Simple Things?
As you brought a child into the world without pain,
Bless us as we try to bring our own creations into it,
though we sweat and cry over them.
You who were homeless in the city of your ancestors,
Bless the homes and hearths we make for our families,
and bring those in need to join us around them.
As you fed your family and lit their lamps,
Bless the food we cook and serve and eat,
and let us have enough to share.
You who show the way to perfection and salvation,
Bless us as we struggle with uncertainty,
and guide us through confusion to the right.
As your heart was sorrowed at your great loss,
Bless us as we cope with our daily griefs,
and give us the strength to comfort others.
Though your home-spun cloak has been exchanged for the sky,
We remember that you once dwelt as we do, upon the earth:
We ask your blessings for our ordinary lives.