Mother Teresa

This person who went among the crowd this doer of charitable works

Begging bowl in hand in a blue-white cotton sari

This spiritual seeker content with a lifetime of austerity

On a morning in Calcutta stopped to rest her tired feet

She felt the strength ebbing from her

For whom do the bells toll? Strains of Diana's funeral choir

Have died down, not reaching where she sleeps in peace

An eminent figure under a lonely halo set apart by holiness

Serving the poor meant she was no more remarkable than them

Fame was an unintended reward “I am not worthy”

She saw herself as a pencil in God's hand

Miracles were traces of her patient steady steps

Attending to tasks for those who had nowhere to turn

In an era of desire writ large, this was a kind of greatness

She was the Way, the Spirit, and The truth

A lavish state funeral would have been superfluous

Her span of “living unto death” was already as plain as a shroud

Her diminutive frame grew frailer with years, sleeping on a grass mat

She handed pills to lepers washed clothes their swollen fingers could not hold

A poor woman who loved the poor living authentically

Her eyes turned to low places her soul ascended all the higher

As the gate of heaven opened, she kept looking back

Once again this maiden from Albania heeded

A summons from her inner heart to leave her home

“Go back to the earth, there are no slums here”

Written on 9th of September, 1997

Translated by Denis Mair