St Catherine of Brussels

Legend of shining beauty

Of sparkling intellect, deep learning

And perfect faith, the kind that leads to death,

Be with us now.

Although the house they built for you

Once gleaming white, is clothed in grime

With streaks of soot climbing the walls

Pray for us, Catherine

Even if your windows' ironwork

Is turning brown, and your great doors are locked

And heavy lorries pass you by,

Indifferent,

Adding their mote of blackness

To your walls, and to our soft grey lungs

Shaking our eardrums and your stones,

Pray for our filthy souls.

Although you never did exist

Save as a paragon of faith

Exemplar of the power of Truth

Pray for us, holy saint.

You whose keen wit cut through

The sentences of slaves of power

Those halitotic rantings of Maxentius’ priests

Until they bowed

Bowed to your sweeter reason

One by one, came over to your side

So that the tyrant, smelling treason

Issued two words

His own short sentence that would

Liberate their souls from servitude,

That simple way the tyrant has

To save his world,

Slicing through the Gordian knot

Of theologians' necks, where blood

Speaks the immeasurable mystery

Of life itself.

And how he scourged your silky back,

Imprisoned you, and when his wife

Came to you, and believed, she too

Was not spared death.

We know now that all this was

Myth making, legend, fairy tale.

We know you never broke the wheel he made

To break your spine.

No sharp sword sheared your beauty

And stilled your red persuasive tongue.

But we know too by their foul breath

That tyrants live.

We know that through we left your side

Escaped the confines of your church,

Broke free of dogma, saw through the myth

We're still not free

Of tyranny, that still has

Lethal power, but this time not just those

Who disagree with their world view

But all the world

Now all the world must suffer,

Suffer and die, at the dictators' whim.

Although they have no throne, no presence

Yet their rule

Is everywhere. Wherever

There is greed, they set up shop.

They've built their palaces

Within our minds.

So Catherine, though we left your side

Although your doors are locked

Although we treat you with neglect

Although you don't exist

Still pray for us.

© Richard Lawson

Brussels

15.11.2013