carla galdo
Carla Galdo is a writer and editor for the women’s book group Well-Read Mom. She has written for a variety of publications including Humanum: Issues in Family, Culture, and Science, Columbia Magazine, and Front Porch Republic. Her poetry has appeared in Dappled Things, Modern Age, and on Irish Southeast Radio, and she was a finalist in the Catholic Literary Arts 2022 Advent Poetry Contest.
Carla has been featured as a conference speaker and podcast host for Well-Read Mom, and as a guest on the podcasts Bright Wings and Catholic Culture. She has taught various classes in literature, theology, and book reviewing, and leads a Catholic Literary Arts poetry critique group for adult writers.
Carla earned an MTS from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of St. Thomas-Houston. She and her husband homeschool their six children on a small hobby farm in rural Virginia.
elegy for all souls’ day
Down over Short Hill Mountain comes the chill
that settles on this white-washed country church,
a quiet freshness, chased by rain, until
the bells call to us from their steeple perch.
The pathway in is gashed with glistening leaves,
bright brilliant scars of autumn's waning days.
Our newly widowed friend Marie still grieves,
her dark eyes veiled to cover sorrow's blaze.
We all glide in, then settle like the frost
that edges the rough grasses in the field.
Our broken prayers for all the ones we've lost
are bound like sheaves, the brittle harvest's yield.
Small crimson berries on the bush outside
lash on the window in a sudden wind,
staccato accompaniment, or nature's chide
to rouse ourselves, and look around, chagrined.
The empty spaces in these pews might be
still laden with the souls who came before,
the jostling cluster of the dead who see
ahead the faint outline of heaven's door.
What winding liturgy of life will lead
us out, what beckoning abundance draw
us in? The mists that linger like our need
hang heavy over fields of fresh cut straw.
Read Carla’s work and more in Solum Journal Volume IV.