A Poem by John Zedolik

Iconophile                                                               

Saint Francis freezing in his concrete skin
and within, no birds to shoulder and share

their warmth or hear his sermon to crackle
against the sere remnants of this garden’s planting,

one may imagine as crabbed hands beseeching
heat not to be found except under divine grace

since this month is deaf to any entreaty
as is this worn image in the cassock one must

paint mendicant brown in in one’s mind
since weathered long ago to stone gray,

which only represents anyway, no need
for iconoclasts to reprehend any worship

of a graven idol, so feel not sorry for the holy
man’s shape transplanted from Assisi

to stand stiffly against the wind and impending
precipitation, he is somewhere else,

most likely warmer even as ashes or bones
while I’m the one shivering, present in the poor flesh

John Zedolik is an adjunct English instructor in Pittsburgh. He has published poems in such journals as Commonweal, Poem, and Transom. In June 2019 he published a full-length collection entitled Salient Points and Sharp Angles (CW Books), which is available on Amazon. His most recent collections are When the Spirit Moves Me: Examinations of Faith (Wipf & Stock/Resource Publications, 2021) and Mother Mourning (Wipf & Stock/Resource Publications, 2022).

Image: Bogdan Solomenco, Byzantine-style icon of St. Francis of Assisi