Saint Francis at San Damiano
land of hilltowns
where looking up you gaze
at humpback mountains down
the valley floor’s smoke green
if you wandered
below Assisi’s
elevated hive of stone
the free-breathing low lanes
and stray tendrils of vine
over the wall-tops
olive-grey leaf clouds
discomfiting sunbursts burn
breezes bear chant of birds
it’s inspiring toil as when
Francis was roaming
unruly country
encountered in drear array
a chapel long unrepaired
prayed its crucifix and heard
the voice addressing
inviting conversion
bade to rebuild the church
timbers masonry to rights
the companions would set about
retraining matters
would form to friars
and vines would still bud
spreading shoots pale trees
produce their olive fruits
sun-fire roasting
intermittently
while the order would stretch
its wings take flight and land
in cities’ thickets re-greened
with grey habits
Martin Potter (https://martinpotterpoet.home.blog) is a British-Colombian poet and academic, based in Edinburgh, and his poems have appeared in Acumen, The French Literary Review, Eborakon, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Poetry Village, and other journals as well as in Black Bough anthologies. His pamphlet In the Particular was published in 2017.
Amethyst Review 