FRANCIS

Free from the cloister.
Free from the World.   
‘To descend into the abyss
Of the Godhead
Where intelligence must rest without’.

Thus Ruysbroeck defines
The Willful Francis
Who abandoned his Bloviated self
In stages of Abnegation
Poverty and Fasting.

Wrapped in brown fustian
His skeletal arms
Beckon still to his acolytes
To go ever deeper
In search of self-denial.

To retreat within
Creation
Where man and beast
Reside with Nature
In Holy Sanctuary.