Catholic Poetry Room stained glass

More than 350 Catholic poems with a new poem published each Wednesday.

Praxis

for Nicaraguan liberation theologian, poet, and priest Fr. Ernesto Cardenal (1925–2020)

To live and love
until arms wear out
and there is only
the wounded
and withering heart.
To live and love
until the word
is no more
and there is only
the healed but withered
heart then the heart
is no more and nothing
is wounded nor withers
and everything is bright and new.

Originally appeared in Philippines Graphic.

Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City, Philippines, is the author of seven poetry books, among them the full-length Metro Manila Mammal (Soma Publishing, 2018) and the chapbook Recumbent (8Letters Bookstore and Publishing, 2023). Nominated three times for the Best of the Net and shortlisted for the 2021 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, his poems have appeared in Philippines Graphic, the Philippines Free Press, DIAGRAM, Matter, Radius, Small Orange, and elsewhere. He is a 2024 International Fellow of the International Human Rights Art Movement (IHRAM) for poetry. Website: Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City

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Since 2019, the Catholic Poetry Room (www.CatholicPoetry.org) has shared a new poem with readers each week. Poems range in style from formal to free verse to ekphrastics, with an honest expression of each author’s spiritual journey. Many Catholic Poetry Room adult readers are new to poetry and find the poems both accessible and enjoyable. The Catholic Poetry Room is also used by Catholic School teachers, who find the poems an excellent way to begin the day with their students, to pray, or use Catholic Poetry Room verse in their academic classes.