Papá

Papa c. 1938

 

there once lived a man

a truly good man

the only man ever

in the history of popes

of prelates and pilgrims

to walk

with stout legs of a horseman

healthy and hale

fearless with faith

upon Bernadette’s path

and into the grotto

where he knelt in devotion

and prayed

then arose

with emergent affliction

a permanent

cripple

mocked by the castoff

crutches and braces

festooning that shrine

it happened

so sayeth the scriptures

by his bitterless hand

in the bible

bearing our names

it happened

in the year of our Lord

when I was conceived

his auxiliary legs

 

 

(originally posted April 2013 – one of many poems I wrote for my father)