II
Leo, Brother Little Lamb of God, to Lady Chastity

Now, my friends, far to the south
and inland is a mount
that smokes from its streams at morning.
All upon that mountain grow the trees,
and in the shadow of the trees
blooms one blood-red rhododendron.
   None has seen it. None touched.

Under the blood-red rhododendron
in the witching of the million trees,
a milk snake loops his magic circle.
No color is lacking from his scale
by slanted light. Think of his
against our Lady's glory, scale
   against hair that, blowing in silence,

sets the first of day aflame.
I woke and saw a girl swell
in the bark of trees. I saw summer
turn womanly down into the valley
with high breasts and a thousand arms of flowers.
I reached to touch;
   flesh undid the dream.

The village wife come to fill her pail
sends her hair behind as rain
sends musks of forests.
I do not know whether this requires of me
      homage or judgment. Christ forgive;
I stand and drink as one drinks
   thunder from the sea.

To what love shall I sing?
I have nothing but love, love abundant,
love unspent, untarnished, rising wave-like
till the sea is drowned.
Who would love me like this back again?
Love is all I keep, the word unsaid,
   the hand withdrawn that the heart might seize.

Once our master watched me watching.
He said, "Leo, come in and say
what a woman's walk has told you.
If it is wrong, we are too small to know."
So I spoke of a Lady who is love,
who for my fidelities
   is lost to me forever.

My Lady Wanting, without you is no lover.
Without you is but taking and the need again.
If a woman cut her hair in quiet,
let the strands blow across the grass
for the moles, the nests of birds,
I'd love her then for what she could not give.
   Lutenists have touched their throats

for music in a woman's praise until
I have no taste for any further sweetness.
But for another savor,
bitter and beautiful.
If she fell darkened of her eyes,
bereft of all the silver stirring,
   shadow then in shadow, black

but for her break in black space,
I would love, as love is empty.
I would as the gardener loves
the singing west that is the rain,
as the soldier loves the enemy who
bleeds beside him on the lost field.
   I would love, Queen Chasteness, as a man

loves what fades by morning from his clenched hand.
Day comes to light the space in my heart.
She enters then, this Lady,
careful that I look away.
I wait; who's loved in emptiness
is loved forever.
   Lady, rain your hair around me.

Read more of The St. Francis Poems
I & III