Sacred { Sacrae Patet Quam Sancta } Poem by Frank James Ryan Jr...fjr

Approaching the stone carved fountain
on a flesh-toasting noon in Milan
there's allurement for one
to turn palms towards the sky,
immerse them beneath
the fresh, cool ripple
of the iridescent, arched soaring,
liquid umbrella
reflecting its prism
off the eye of Gods sun.

Yet, in the center of the town
at the squares where old folks
congregate, sit on benches,
back to back... like bookends, and-
where art is all so sacred that -
dipping hands in Borghese or Trevi
would be likened to the sacrelig
of ensconcing ones' callused feet
in the Baptismal of Peter's Basilica,
though ' sacred' by definition
is clearly subjective issue....
so say the atheists, ... agnostics
and those defrocked men of the cloth
who've been mortally stained
by the sins of their own choosing.

Traditionalists tend to scoff at such notion
and blink? ... not an odds-makers chance;
castes of olde-garde and bare stripped cultures,
still embrace the new tarnished copper
that once shone resplendent
as deep yellow gold;
rules that withstood
maverick efforts of change;
the likes of XXIII and Vatican II
which to traditionalists was sheer Papal faux-pas,
changes in canon that must have had Leo
and Ignatius clawing at their tombs...
for during their time and tenure,
all which was consideded sacred
was decided by that City within a City
and was considered very objective,
indelible....'jacta alea est'!
And because so... all of this... as well as all of that
must be acknowledged and respected as all the same...
as that by all means is Sacred in itself.


________________ F j R ________________



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- Frank James Ryan Jr. / FjR -