St Thérèse flew to Jesus, growing ever smaller
in her cell. Her childlike trust, her little ways
captured in her reflections of the natural world.
That tiny brown bird winging its way to God.
A single grain of sand in God's hourglass.
The martyrs’ dust she gathered at the Colosseum.
And the lowly violet dotting a field in Normandy,
or a chestnut falling to the convent ground.
A skiff sailing on an eternal,
shoreless sea.
La petite soeur, with her dry, soft voice,
Her soul singing as if she were St Cecilia.
St Thérèse, Small and Holy
BY
Philip C. Kolin is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Southern Mississippi, a scholar and poet whose work listens closely to the human heart. Across more than forty books — from studies of Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams to finely wrought collections of poetry — he traces the places where language becomes prayer, witness, and healing. His poetry moves through themes of faith, justice, and the fragile beauty of the American South, offering readers a voice attentive to mystery and alive to the world’s quiet revelations.