Robert Demaree- Poetry

UBI CARITAS

The choir has sung

A modern setting

Of Ubi Caritas—

Where there is love—

And I search for the

Source of the text,

Carried across a thousand years,

Medieval abbeys to Protestant chapels,

And always the agreeable, hopeful God

You want and need and expect.

But here’s the trouble with the Internet.

On the same screen:

Did you know that

Ubi Caritas’s criminal record

Can be searched?

First name Ubert, perhaps,

Goes by “Ubi.”

Two Senryu

Organic Greens

Vivaldi playing,

Cool mist on arugula:

Upscale grocery store.

Downturn

Hard times in N.C.

Vacant slots in the strip malls,

Abandoned motels.