Читать книгу St. Francis Poems - David Craig - Страница 10

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.