St. Philip Neri
“Go take a hike out passed the Catacombs
of St. Callistus. Celia once was there.
Cornelius is and other Popes in domes
of ancient stone. Inhale the olive air.
Then buy a chicken from a chicken-farm
and bring it back to me the way you came.
Transport it in the crook of your left arm.
You’re not the first. Others have done the same.
Pluck all the feathers of the butchered bird
along the Appian Way and Roman paths.”
She thought the penance wildly absurd.
The saints, she thought, know how to get their laughs…
When she returned he told her what was next:
“Go regather each feather you plucked-out.”
She looked at him bemused and quite perplexed:
“But Father—that’s impossible; no doubt…”
“Likewise, my dear, we can’t take gossip back.
So change your ways and do what Christ would do.”
A brilliant priest who had a special knack.
That night he fed the poor with chicken-stew.
Reid McGrath lives and writes in the Hudson Valley Region of New York.
Cute moral story with a surprise practical ending. Just the lyric genre to choose, Reid, for the fun-loving Pippo Buono. Think you might want “past” rather than “passed” in the first line. Or is it meant to give a kindly rebuke to those of us who may be sticklers for spelling and grammar?
Reid, what a colorful story and poem! You have made the gossip penance come alive. The idea of using a chicken plucked of its feathers for a lesson is a great one with the making of chicken stew a surprise ending increasing my admiration for St, Philip Neri and your poem. You write eloquently.