For Want of Grace             

the Blind Pigeon

On Vatican square, when heaven’s vaults are silent and alone, 
and the door to the dead the keeper of the keys has secured, 
and through the colonnades winds whisper why, slyly obscured.
A witness yet stands, ageless stone stolen from Pharaoh’s home.

No, to the women who speak; no, to the saintly that seek, 
now might the rule, station the tool, ritual the self-serving amen.
Where the pilgrims pining, where the souls so broken and bleak?  
Still, the bent world broods, looking eastward for a hero. Then, 

     the Blind Pigeon comes, tap-tap-tapping the way 

over the cold stones and old bones – echoes’ lost lament,

where the crimson crowns lavished away their salt and say. 

So now, in stillborn circles turns nature’s nurturer everspent.

Weep not, O winged spirit, O giver of breath and grace, 
soon the maker of time will find thee a more loving race.

Leo Gher (August 2019)