of Charles de Gaulle.)
Just outside the gates of that heaven,
that idyll of praise: shops stuffed the street,
good art—and not—for sale.
Tasteful French corps pushed wheelchairs
inside; and underground, a massive church,
like some holy bus terminal: 100,000 people;
Masses, screens in different languages—
the great, decaying church up top, with its inclines,
pews, decrepit enough to convince anyone
that what mattered most wasn’t there.
In town at Sacred Heart Church,
where the actor-priest had reduced Bernadette
to sainthood: no pews, just benches
and the Mass in French—airy as a town square,
which is what it was: the nation’s fiber.
Jude, at three, ran across that basement,
through shadows, just to sit next to
a darkened statue of St. John Vianney.
The water in the holy baths froze,
and I, flippant: tasteless at mom’s, bouncing
on her furniture—as an attendant mumbled
something about reverence.
We both caught colds.
The Santa Fe Staircase (Tour)
Next to a large diocesan bookstore
grab, a decommissioned Loretto;
you couldn’t walk up the tight circular—
car vibrations! (Everything truly good
gets lost: the depth, prayer which sustains.)
Thirty-three steps, a novena’s answer
to bad carpentry!
I try to picture St. Joseph in a saddle.
Eastwood’s cigar, Mexican poncho, a level
in his holster. He bent the wood in water,
just down the road from Georgia O’Keefe’s museum.
I went to see a nearby church with holy dirt:
El Santuario de Chimayo. (Humble locals
were worried about its lean, as we waited—
like one must, it seems, at every site.)
A small room contained a round pit,
the “holy dirt,” adjacent Prayer Room
with photos, all the crutches you could use.
People ate the soil, back when they had no shame,
nothing to lose.
Theirs are the crutches!
I took some home in a vial.
The cliff dwellings nearby were different:
ruins of pueblos. Ladders and drawings,
worn stone steps. God dancing, as He always does,
in feathers, in the past—It’s where we see Him best.
How sweet and dry the American West is:
blue sky, scrubbing brush, canyons,
the smooth run of car wheels.
Fake Apparition
—in Carrollton, OH
The theologian’s old Victorian sunroom
windows—stack of locutions on the sill.
Having been appointed by the Bishop,
he just shook his head.
We went out to play hoops with his kids:
side yard, cracked asphalt, full court.
He’d built a monastery, because a change
is coming: huge dormitories, beautiful church—
Mark’s ark, I kidded him, still empty
for the most part, just a few religious
in a new order. But the gesture!
It was rich: like our lives, what we hope to fill—
Francis’s fools!
Do it again! Do it again!
Let our hearts be the flagstone
everyone walks on!
As a young family, ours used to follow his
around Hopedale’s Sacred Heart Church,
Eucharistic procession. Absurd Catholics,
dressing up the present in banners, deacon’s garb,
as if we know what gives it expression!
How many heroes we’ve known!
Bounce the ball, young one.
Bounce the ball.
The Madonna’s House
1.
Within the week I was on a muzzled Greyhound, heading into the Great White North—Canady. Destination: Moose Jaw, Ontario. I waved good-bye to my All-American college life, hugs for everyone. Both Israel and Periwinkle wished me happy trails. She patted me on the back, congratulated me for having escaped the blight of intellectualism and suburbia; Israel suggesting that, when in a squeeze, running away is certainly an option. Then he grinned, shook my hand,
