A Blessing for your Weekend

Feeding Pigeons in St. Peter's Square
Photo Credit: Mark Grace

Feeding Pigeons In Saint Peter's Square

We rise early before the sun 

bounces out of bed, slipping behind gray 

clouds to light St. Peter's Square

standing there surrounded by statuesque

apostles and saints, popes and martyrs

we feel small, foreign, strangely

out of place, expecting any 

moment to see the heavens 

open, a ray to glance down 

on Paul or Peter, certainly not

Jesus, more than likely someone

unknown like Norberto or

Tibaldo, Costanza or Pietro

Nolasco, Atanasio, Andrea,

Filippo Neri or Giovanni,

enkindling marble, 
enlivening sightless eyes, 
lubricating mute tongues

to condemn our Protestant heresies,

prophesy against our tennis 
shoes and Bermuda shorts, 

pronounce us unfit,

unwelcome to stand on ground

venerated by ecclesiastical royalty,

we turn slowly, surrounded 

by God's lions unsmiling, 

preternaturally still, 

Instead comes an old man

and two girls, one with a pacifier 

clutched firmly between her teeth,

they lead a kit of pigeons all underfoot,

cooing birds, giggling girls, old

man offering seeds to his accomplices 

swinging arms toddler stiff, sowing

chaos among the all-too-busy 

pigeons as we watch, bemused,

Everyone speaks Italian, giggles and 

squeaks in Italian, coos and gurgles in 

Italian, so I cannot be sure,

But I think I hear a wisp of 
Latin, a blessing for a clutch of 
slow-tongued Baptists

"Dei plena sunt omnia"

R. Mark Grace

Photo Credit: www.crosscards.com