Jim Sullivan

Mimosa

I think the bell would ring around 7 pm. We would all march over to the chapel and get in line – high school freshmen first, then sophomores, and so on with the priests and brothers at the end. They are in cassocks and look solemn and formal. With the line formed one of the older students begins the rosary. The post dinner procession walks toward the Blessed Mother's shrine. Along the way is a mimosa tree; and being May in the deep south, the tree is in bloom. The fragrance is pervasive and still the murmuring continues "Hail Mary full of grace. . ." Ten Hail Marys, a decade, five decades, a rosary – long, repetitive, and full of petition. To me the cut grass and sweaty youth, the endless repeating of muffled words, the prayers caught in the late sun all blend into a blur with only the scent of the mimosa remaining.

swinging a golf club
in the early dew
asperges me