Читать книгу St. Francis Poems - David Craig - Страница 15

III

The third consideration of the holy stigmata

(Gifts)

Yellow-faced, sweaty, in the torch descending,

Leo saw it rest on Francis’ head, an absent voice

murmuring in the shake and gilt of late summer leaves.

Turning disobedient to go, he heard his rescue.

At forgiveness’s still whole feet, he wept.

And Francis, what could he give

beyond a playful tug on that ear, all of his own?

Yes, God would do holy things on this mountain;

all the world will wonder. (Leo wondered—

what more could he do?)

Together they opened the wet Bible

under a slate-grey sky, the shake of trees.

Francis knew it was God who rose in the cold stars

every night, the one who still coddled him

in the breath and muzzle of frozen air.

And the repaying? This small, sad life given,

though he knew it couldn’t be little enough.

And so, heavy on the spool of his nature, Francis

turned east, like the Soldan, begged for one last grace—

as God had reckoned all his time: one’s delight,

the other’s joy—to feel the passion bodily,

where it was real, in the fiber of heart muscle,

burning tendons: the road, dolorosa, beneath his feet.

God inflamed him, upward, in the air to meet

the six-winged seraph, a soul to greet his own:

that surest sun, moving steadily—on the cross;

two white wings extended above his head:

the Father, as ever, being glorified; two wings below,

outstretched, to still the world; and the last,

for Francis only—lost in the glorious white

of twiggy witnesses.

He didn’t feel the convulsing: his side

searing without blood—entrails in sunlight.

Francis had seen the truth, and had the sense