On Theology of Hamsters and Nuns

For Algebretta and Soeur Françoise Thérèse

Algebretta, mouse-sized sage,

with sawdust dreams and algebraic grace,

once ruled a cardboard kingdom

in the corner of our class—

her whiskers twitching like antennas

for divine mischief.

She came home with me the week

I bested doctrine in a small imposing office with Father Pat

and, flushed with pride, challenged a teacher

who is best left to memory—

not Soeur Françoise Thérèse,

who understood far more than I did.

Soeur Françoise Thérèse,

in habit soft as candle smoke,

taught mercy like it was a shape

you could trace with a finger—

a cross, a circle, the small spiral

that marks the difference

between knowing the rules

and knowing love.

She never scolded me

for the questions I asked too early

or the ones I never dared to speak.

She only smiled, as if God

might be found even

in the peanut shells

of a hamster’s dinner tray.

That weekend, Algebretta

ran circles like a mystic in motion,

and I—half theologian, half wild thing—

watched her spin, thinking:

Perhaps this too is prayer.

Perhaps the world is small,

and sacred,

and very much alive.