Mary was a beloved member of the St. Andrew's poetry collective. She sat by my side on Fridays from noon to 1:00 p.m. On her last Friday, she read Ultimate Sabbath, a poem she had revised that morning:

People saw I was dying

and began to applaud

then praise, yet

all I did was die.

Death caught me

napping, a book

lying open

across my chest,

last breaths crackling.

Then a long hiss,

the way ice meets fire,

the way peace descends

after long exhalations,

the peace that passeth all understanding.

Then, I understood.

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Mary understood and embodied that peace.  Lord, make us all instruments of such peace.