Saint Martin

Cacophonies of sparrows fill our streets.
Gust-buffeted, snagged on branch or fence
They all look so alike the mind invents
A single figure’s figure that repeats

As in old codices: Martin of Tours,
A soldier terribly armed and poorly dressed.
A tramp holds out his two hands like a nest
And Martin splits his cloak. Each man endures.

That evening Martin dreams: the tramp, of course,
Was Christ, well pleased with His new catechumen.
Striding across a page his deeds illumine,
Martin deserts his comrades and their wars.

With every forward step his stature grows:
Here Martin raises cloisters, then the dead
Until, finally, there plays about his head
Something much like sunshine. But his clothes,

His flesh, those things he’d chosen to forswear
Are all that art and nature multiplied:
Grey-brown cowls flutter and subside
On dripping dogwoods, fences, everywhere

Sprinklers fling their buttresses of rain.
And after careful study, a patient reader
May note how, like an hourglass, the feeder
Is carried off, grain by tiny grain.