The Lady All in Red

Clotilde Contemplating the Venus de Milo (1906) by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Old St. Mary’s sat as a stony filigree

Atop the mountain head

Watching the sparkled sea, blue and red,

And from the world free.

Inside the quiet church a young priest read

To his only lamb

A lady all in red.

Sundays came and went as the storms across the sea.

The two broke bread

And worshipped in the shelter of their high homestead

Sharing a common key.

One night a gale sailed as a ghostship overhead

And found the home

Of the lady all in red.

Sabbath dawn met the priest alone with the sea.

A private mass was said,

But the red wine filled him with augur dread

For the absentee.

Down rocks and through trees he quickly tread

To see what had come

Of the lady all in red.

Bedside he found her, praying on bended knee

The color of lead

With the bible in her hands outspread.

Tears as of the sea

Fell from his face to the verse she last read.

“Jesus wept”

For the lady all in red.