To the Virgin of Guadalupe

By Gene Fendt - Allbertus Magnus Professor of Philosophy at UNK

Because you said there shall be roses,
there are roses blooming in the snow.

Because you wished the faithful poor
to be believed, your image wrapped its arms
around him, and his cloak became cathedral.

Because your perfect body only
always bent to your own sinless will,
earth's heaven henceforth wears your cloak's color

and honors, by its act, God's poem:
that word become flesh, and body, undestroyed,
put on perfection like a cloak.

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Gene Fendt is the Allbertus Magnus Professor of Philosophy at UNK, where he has been teaching for over 35 years. He has won numerous prizes for his poetry and is a regular lector at Prince of Peace parish in Kearney, Nebraska.