February Joy

 
Not so much suffering,
as contrariness, unexpected
– snow mixed to rain
or rain mixed to snow –
How change this slush and gray to Hope-Fuel?
 
St. Francis, Nature-Lover, did such,
using Love beyond Creation
and Sister Poverty –
God’s Gift was all.
He asked Brother Monk
what “great joy” could be?
 
Cold with snow?  
– what greater still?
 
   hunger and night?  
   – greater still
 
      door-closed rejecting ?
      – yet,  greater still.
 
            refused as “ragged Francis”?  
           – that, then, he called the Greatest Joy.  
 
A February – not just in cold,
Or hunger-fast, or dark –
but found in human Heart-Slap,  [i]  
is where our Francis felt
beginning-ending hand of God,
No question – just rejoicing
 
(2010s)
 


[i]   Brown, Raphael.  The Little Flowers of St. Francis.  New York:  Image Books, 1958, Part One, Chapter 8.  “How St. Francis Taught Brother Leo That Perfect Joy Is Only in the Cross”.