He flanked the man,
feinted, sang in bad langue d’oc because he was
a merchant’s son: “What do you think will become of me?
Rest assured, I will be worshiped throughout the world.”
Eventually released, a dream would finally wake him:
past the castles it offered, the legions of runic, rubied arms—
surpassing even his carefully chosen own,
a walled field of shields bronzing sunlight.
Chivalry so moved in him the next morning
that he gave all his clatter away. Friends laughed,
wondered if his stirruped feet were (ever) on the ground.
But Francis, for his part, he figured, yes, yes,
he could give them this; he could give the answer
before its time, be its fool, its peacock,
anything to help them see.
When asked the reason for his glow, Francis
answered largely, as if he were one:
“I shall become a great prince.”
Why else were dreams given, but to make us princes
(and holy fools) before we would become one
(preparing him to turn the world upside down)?
He wondered, to what king?
And how could he be a knight and wear the holy ribbons
of Church too? What of his lady-
who-must-be-in-waiting?
The next morning came, and Francis, sitting on a stump,
rejoiced, kept that marvelous engine,
stabled best he could
in his junket-heart.
III
How the Lord visited Francis’ heart for the first time filling it with marvelous tenderness that gave him strength to begin to progress spiritually in looking down on himself and all vanities, in prayer, almsgiving, and poverty.
A party for the new money, and more,
from the very stems of delight: ladies—
each of his pals, now enjoying what was left
of the tipsy night, some steps in front of him,
their misplaced lives, as ever, just out of reach.
Francis, ever the jester, chose to walk behind,
scepter in his hand, dressed as he was,
in silks and tatters, knowing by now that rags
really were riches, either way: metaphor for the chase,
the shell games of wealth and fame;
for that, or for the more quiet, obvious need.
But how could he get his friends to know
what was real, and missing,
what demanded so much?
They came back to him, their captain in mirth
elsewhere, looking up, seemingly lost
in the glorious conflagration of stars.
Was he mooning over the crimson stomacher?
“Yes, you are right!” he answered.
“And I shall take a wife—more noble, wealthy,
and beautiful than any you have never seen.”
But they didn’t laugh when he said, “Poverty . . .
the one we all chase without knowing it.”
And after that day, he never denied an alms
to anyone who asked in God’s only name.
Heaping his absent father’s table with begged bread,
Francis piled his want high in joyful exasperation,
(in front of his grieving mother: that the world would,
too soon, begin hammering away
at his white-hot enthusiasms, bend him—
all out of shape).
But Francis was, as ever, elsewhere: pressing his face
between Rome’s bars, his last flightless bird,
bag of coins, naming Peter’s tomb.
And swapping clothes with a beggar,
he tried on his life. Yes! Yes!
These would help him keep himself in a line,
would help him push the world far away,
with its trumpets, bandied names!
This way he’d never confuse himself again.
He’d wake up next to new brothers: lepers,
dew on his rags, soiled feet.
He sang loudly, played fiddlesticks on the open road,
so that the world would be forced to mark him,
hold him to what mattered.
Once back, he didn’t share his secret,
because he was betrothed to a lady, Poverty,
a women hidden in so much beauty
that a look from anyone at all
would have violated their first
intimate steps.
IV
How he began to overcome himself by his dealing with lepers.
Praying loudly, so that God would mark him
mark the degree of his need,
Francis wrapped each day in the fish
