Ode to Francis of Assisi

Hello skinny brother, hello belly full of the sacred, hello to you who wants to eat the impossible,
What a joy to see you.

Ah, Francis,
less courageous people like me can only admire you and your madness --Madness that kept you sane.
Madness -- your quickest ladder to heaven.

All your life you waited
 for god.

You waited so much that sometimes you wondered if he really saw you.

Your stubborness paid.

You hugged that cross for so long
that he could'nt take it away.

so he let you keep it.

You kept it so close to you , it got  fused into your body,
The wood, and the nails, grew out of your palms and feet

You  became a walking cross, nailed, twenty four hours a day to it .

the birds came and sat on your shoulders.
wondering what you were.

Those who followed you
followed you,
but
you followed your solitude,
the only place you were convinced
where God would meet you.


i look at you brother Francis,

i've been looking at you for years,
your ordinariness embracing life
beyond, every possible human being's understanding


i climbed  Mount Subasio this morning
hoping to bump into you.

just to see you pass.

Then a blue fog got in

i knew you were coming.

and You were there in those clump of trees
just where the sky had opened ,
the sun poured all its light,
i did'nt see anything except those beams of light
that was all i ever got to see of you -- just beams of light.

i never came to you to
learn about God

i came to you to watch
how silence talked to you
till every part of you oozed with light.

Then as you spoke the light kept spilling -- the stigmata

the five wounds,

five words filled you with heavenly fire
that only the birds, the animals, the forest , the sun and moon understood

the five words were the same as your five wounds
you said your words  over and over
till your torments rendered to peace

five doors through which your soul looked out

five canticles from which the doves flew into the moonlight

and then, the starlight fell into your palms
and your heart howled like a wolf to God


You became God's wolf.


sleeplessly you wandered in your solitude.


So,
God gave you
a stone

named Assisi

upon which
anyone who sat
could see how beautiful you were.

The daily passing light was your tattered gown

from your nakedness stood out the sun.
from your whispers -- the olive grooves.

You whispered all your life
to God

i hear you

mumbling,
" we're not erudites but god's paupers
 and to Poverty our sister we surrender..."

God gave Peter a rock
and ,
 " go and build my temple " , he said.

But you built yours in the open air,  right there
Where God came to sit in your heart.