(Based on a fresco by an anonymous Umbrian painter in the lower church of the basilica of San Francesco in Assisi; circa 1260)
O come away now—this is folly,
utter nonsense. Christ’s own passion
wounds your hands and holy feet—
for what? To waste on stupid birds?
My Brother scolds me thus and tugs
my sleeve. He frowns from deep inside
his hood. The tonsure’s somber stripe
above his furrowed, anxious brow
and narrowed eyes—all parallel
stacked lines of doubt that harrow me:
They plead What is this all about?
but dare not think, Is Francis mad?
Maybe I am, maybe I am
But, Brother, notice how the tree
is veined with light and how its arms
seem to repel encroaching night.
And can you tell how many birds
reflect its glow and wait to hear
the simple, joyous things I know?
I will proclaim the faithful Word
that’s clad in red and strapped in black,
here clasped against my heart. So let
me be. I’ll not take one step back
until I bless my feathered flock.
You see there that one, pale and perched
atop that bush, as if she might
address us too, the one whose hue
is very like my own pierced flesh?
Dear Brother, in her readiness
to sing find cause for what I do.
A native of Chicago like the Holy Father, Gina Pribaz is a Pushcart-nominated writer of creative nonfiction whose essays have appeared in Notre Dame Magazine, Ars Medica, Tampa Review, Aleteia, and elsewhere, and is coeditor of The Healer’s Burden: Stories and Poems of Professional Grief. When the last of four children left for college four years ago, she embraced a providential opportunity to study theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy, where she also serves as editor-in-chief of the student magazine, La Parola. Gina is the founder of With All Your Heart, a Catholic Women’s Writing Workshop, and holds monthly sessions in her attic apartment. A candidate with the Third Order Dominicans, she designs Catholic writing retreats to inspirational places like Assisi, where this poem was born.