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.