A POET VIEWS COMMON SAINTS

(For Charles Simic)

from his own high vantage
of worldly wisdom
– pen dipped in rare ink –
imputing to them
(being so backward
as to love God and Christ
and hate that in the cultures of the world
which trample the holy)
ignorance and hatred
of wisdom.

It is a sad day
(in centuries of sad days)
when poets walk on the flowers
of the Maker’s garden
because they are simple blooms
with thorns
and say of their fragrance
These have the savor of death,
reviling that
the Gardener loves.

Charles, perhaps some of the priests in your line
knew that very One, and uttered prayers
for an unseen posterity
that He waft upon the breeze into their lives
words of that life dipped in the fountain
of unending youth – so please don’t spit them out
because the vessel is common
or has a little good clean dirt in it.
Don’t spurn the gift of that elixir, which to drink
brings the vision poets gladly live or die for love of.