my prayer, like a heron
on pond’s edge, tall and
blue, stilt legs still in cattails
ready to stir a slight breeze
disturb the dull water with
a deep wingbeat, awaits the
call, the startle, the sad enough
to lift it up to Something.
Marianne Gallagher works in Jesuit education. She has taught theology at Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, Maryland; Boston College High School in Boston, Massachusetts; and Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. She is engaged in Ignatian pedagogy and curriculum, faculty formation, spirituality, and leadership through various regional, national, and global projects with the USA East Province, the Jesuit School Network, the Jesuit Conference and the Jesuit Curia. Marianne is currently a member of the Province’s Southern Maryland Task Force designing a program focused on understanding the history of Jesuit slaveholding and building student experiences that connect this history to the work of racial justice today.