The old priest clings
fast
and with fearful fingers
to the altar slab
that
long has stood
in this faithful place
this place of filial hope.
His heart is now
quite cold
dead as the stone
his hands tight hold:
cold as its silent speech.
His soul is withered
as autumnal leaves
which fall from stricken trees
to dampen, darken
and decay
– or else to burn
on bonfire bright
to briefly lighten up the night
and end their feeble, futile span
no sooner than by them began.
His eyes flare out with tears:
precious gems of salty woe.
He mourns mortality
and loss of love
and failing hope
and desiccated faith
which flaunts its false solace
though he, like Faustus his forebear,
is far beyond
all scope of grace.
His mouth frames silent syllables
which if were spoke
might shrive his soul;
but no words, fair or foul,
escape his narrow lips
nor e’en inchoate grunt slips
out: no sacrament of hope.
The old priest slumps
devoid
of breath and and word
on the altar slab
that
long has stood
in this fateful place
this place of filial hope.
His heart is now
quite cold
dead as the stone
his hands un-hold:
cold as its silent speech.
His soul is withered
as autumnal leaves
which fall from stricken trees
to dampen, darken
and decay
– or else to burn
on bonfire bright
to briefly lighten up the night
and end their feeble, futile span
no sooner than by them began.
This priest must have been (or still is) a very holy man. Such is the test of all the tried and true saints in this world: -- that they endure their very own "dark nights of the soul." By the Grace of God, they all came through their "trials by fire." (i.e., Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta who questioned the existence of God shortly before her death -- and then overcame the spiritual onslaughts of the devil and triumphed in her salvation.)
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