The Gifts Bestowed Poem by Kevin Rice

On that rugged Umbrian rock
Twixt Tiber and Arno
While deep was my sorrow,
Tempered with quiet joy and gratitude,
I inwardly professed
That at some future hour
Of hush and still serenity
There would be time to praise Him for the gifts
Bestowed on me in love immense and infinite
On that momentous day

The feast day of The Holy Cross drew nigh
When Brother Leo, faithful in devotion,
And this unprofitable servant
Surrendered each our minds and lowly flesh
In earnest prayer and fasting,
While night looked down on our remote orison
On the high verdant slopes
Of Monte Dell Verna

While dawn was yet concealed
The darkness which embraced our humble shrine
Was set aflame
With radiant and penetrating light
That bore no marks of natural invention
And, with vision long unsound,
I recognised, while trembling filled my breast,
A Seraph beautiful, revealed upon a cross
Aloft on burnished wings, in blazing majesty attired,
And smiling gently

Forthwith the Seraph, fixing his eyes on mine
Made visible the wounds
So terrible upon his hands and feet,
The open lesion plain upon his side.
The marks my Saviour in his passion bore,
By some transcendent influence,
Assigned themselves in searing spears of fire
To my unworthy frame, and thereupon
I swear I felt the breath invisible
Of Sister Death upon my weary brow,
And I believed that God had sealed the hour
Of my release from this bleak and broken world.

I left behind the mountains and the shadows
And evermore I carry forth
The tokens and the memory
Of my encounter
With the love of Christ.
I know in truth and certainty
That this our bleak and broken world
Is nothing less
Than God's unblemished Eden
Bestowed on us in love immense and infinite
Faintly concealed
Beneath the mark of men.