my father perceived as a vision of st francis

• i heard him

  rake the ash from the grate
• a perfect

  vision of St. Francis
• made whole


  made young again
• the garden

  was a pandemonium
• he was


  suddenly radiant
• his hair 


  completely silver…. the stoop of his shoulder… his leg was stiff
• stars 


  in the west
• frost whitened 


  the slates of the estate
• in a 


  finglas garden