We find no saints on Earth.
Just plain old men and women
Chipped, crimped and crackled.
Examine a fine bit of skin and you will find the mole of witchcraft…
But only if you want to.
Living bodies stink of life – the taxations of time, follies of youth, crippling doubt, condemnations of better souls…
What flawed creature could possibly be offered up to God as a paragon of what we can offer?
Present a good enough example
And we work it over with the finest toothed combs
Determined to catch the fleas that dig into every gleaming coat,
Loud in disappointment when we find it!
Toss out the charlatan! Another child of Eden!
Perhaps it takes the soft focus of death
To turn us into kinder judges of our kin.
There are no saints on Earth.
They exist only in words and our invisible hopes
The likes of which can dance on the heads of pins
And pass through the eyes of the Bayeux’s needles
Unweighted and unbound
Spiraling out of our grasp
To Heaven.

****

This is what happens when you read the news before breakfast, people.
EAT YOUR BREAKFAST FIRST.