Who is Mary?

By Gretchen Yealy

Is she the lucky little Sunday school girl (not me)
Who got to wear the beautiful blue headgear
And perhaps hold a real live baby?

Is she the woman of way too much great art
Staring off into the distance
Oblivious to the naked Son of God on her lap?

Is she the one who got madly mixed up with
Subject headings for the pop singer Madonna
In my online library catalog?

Is she the hope
That women like me might find
Something in the feminine worth worshipping?

Gretchen Yealy

When she is not clambering up and down mountain passes, Gretchen Yealy works as a catalog librarian at Brown University.