Holy Grail (A Clogyrnach)

The statue of Saint Francis*  stands
With placid smile and quiet hands
Beneath a scarred birch
Where supplicants perch—
A quaint church
On torn lands.

Thick ivy clings to graves and grows
Untended over stones in rows.
A blanket of moss
Has softened love’s loss—
On each cross,
Weathered prose.

A furtive form, a runaway,
Collapses, wounded, on the clay
Where merciful dead
Lie restless in bed.
Weak with dread,
Gnarled hands pray.

He pants despite the twilight’s chill,
Then hears above the whippoorwill
A heart-stopping sound:
The bay of a hound.
Face to ground,
He lies still.

A rabbit at the statue’s base
Takes flight downhill; the dogs give chase.
A lone overseer
Rides hard at the rear,
Passes near,
Sees no trace.

The hunted flees his hiding place
For Rappahannock’s**  swift embrace.
Once captive, now free,
He mulls mystery—
On bent knee
Whispers grace.

*Saint Francis of Assisi is known as the patron saint of animals.

**In 1862 Union troops occupied parts of Stafford County opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia. That spring and summer, approximately 10,000 slaves crossed the Rappahannock River to pass through Union lines to freedom.

First published in River Tides by Riverside Writers. Edited by James Gaines. Middletown, DE: Create Space, 2017. 206-207. Print.