Cistercian pilgrim of Palestine,
started home for Clairvaux when he heard
his patron Bernard was dying.
Got as far as Italy when word came
his master passed. Settling in
a hermit’s cave at Bari, he died.
An utterly untidy, unconsummated life—
beatified but not canonized; a mass
without communion; Lent with no Good
Friday. His “little way,” hardly a crawl.
Like Jesus at the pool of Siloam,
he was wholly accessible to all;
a pilgrim’s pilgrim parked in a wayside—
no going forward; no going home.
