August 15: A Saint Poem, Oliver de la Paz, "Under the Stained Glass Saints"

For obvious reasons, I'm a sucker for poems about saints.  There are quite a lot of them out there, believe it or not.  One of my favorites is Galway Kinnell's "Saint Francis and the Sow."  Perhaps I'll share it with you guys some day.

I have a saint poem from Oliver de la Paz tonight.  It's got Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Thomas Aquinas.  It reminds me of my Catholic childhood, growing up under the stained glass windows among the flickering votives.

Saint Marty can almost smell the incense in these lines.

Under the Stained Glass Saints

by:  Oliver de la Paz

For squirming, Fidelito receives a pinch from his mother.  Disturbed by his yowl, the once quiet congregation sing their Aves an octave louder.

The boy, uncomfortable under the gaze of Saint Francis de Sales who writes reports on his misbehavior, rubs a welt the size of a nickel on his arm.  The hands of Thomas Aquinas, folded in prayer, frighten him too.  He thinks, if he turns his head, the fingers will spring to life and pinch his ear.  Briefly, Fidelito behaves.

But when the time comes to kneel and the padded boards come down from their hinges, Fidelito straddles one as though it were a horse.  He urges it to run far from the stream of the Saints' blue shadows.  Those praying around him bow their heads and smile.

I'm a sucker for stained glass, too