St. Francis Poems. David Craig

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СКАЧАТЬ strings of his too-personal heart.

      Coercing his distant mouth, he made himself kiss

      what was left of the leper’s hand, fold it,

      cracking, crackling over the scarred coins

      he’d managed to lodge there.

      And the diseased cloth of lip, hot rasp

      of peace—returned, marked Francis’ face

      with all that was rank and squirming inside.

      He joined them, a leper before he became one:

      these men marked with strength enough

      to bear the inside of the cup;

      he kissed what he could find, hold of every hand, face,

      pressed each to the clear water of his cheeks.

      In earnest repetition, he found what he needed:

      the swollen face of God, in every moist, crusted curse,

      in the drop of every eye.

      And because he finally learned

      to fully embrace that gift, he had to endure the next:

      departure, toward those more obviously afflicted.

      V

      How the crucifix spoke to him for the first time and how he henceforth carried the passion of Christ in his heart until death.

      The corpus strained—against

      him, the rut in the land, the stag’s opened throat,

      every merchant coin; all years before

      his own skin would yaw, open its bitter hosanna.

      Outside the Portiuncula, he cried out

      because no one ever did, because the world would not.

      He would make it his rooftop then,

      shout in a loud voice, attempt to wake the forest,

      all the unfruitful dead beyond.

      He’d sprinkled chaste “Brother Ash” on his food

      because we never think to do the same.

      And because Mary had to rummage,

      he rushed to the ground, ate with the pigs.

      If the brothers couldn’t see how crucial humility was,

      how would anyone else?

      He’d stop so often, lost in loud sighs:

      his aloneness, their burden; he’d provoke,

      disrupt them out of any earned rest, meal.

      He’d tell them that when they heard the next sigh,

      they should praise God for His great condescension;

      that they should pray for Francis continually,

      whose need was at least as great as their own.

      VI

      How he escaped from the persecution of his father and relatives, living with the priest at the church of San Damiano, throwing the money on the window.

      Gauds—sold to Foligno, the family’s horse

      to help it in its acquisitive heave.

      Did things matter more than the time left?

      And tossing the world onto the sill, he collapsed

      under the weight of the wall.

      His father spread out beneath his table.

      Was God now asking for ten percent of his son too?

      Or had the fool gone off at another deep end?

      So Pietro left to find out just how strongly Francis stood.

      But when his son hid from the commandments,

      he irked: for exactly what life

      was this preparing him?

      Francis prayed hard that God

      who never showed Himself, would—

      just this once; days later finding courage

      in the only place it is ever offered: in darkness.

      If God were with him, after all,

      who could stand against?

      Many as it turned out. Mud flew in the streets.

      And so his father, again, only wanting his son

      to be a man, only wanting him to face his life,

      whatever his choices, returned.

      Finding only quiet, he collared the boy,

      tried to force him to stake out this place he had claimed;

      his son had to realize what is cost

      to live in the town square.

      Francis crowed he’d been freed

      by (a convenient) God’s grace

      (if you asked his father);

      and stacking all he did not possess:

      “Pietro di Bernadone is no longer my Father . . .”

      The ancient stone building

      collapsed in on itself. How could his favorite son

      so un-love him, a father who only asked

      that he stand up for himself, not against him

      when the time came.

      Led away, the old man clutched his son’s clothes,

      the Bishop covering Francis with the mantle of church,

      his father’s earnest hands

      with eight centuries of dirt.

      VII

      The hard work and fatigue involved СКАЧАТЬ