See how the court jester plays the fool for greater fools,
closes doors and opens windows,
slender and clouded,
onto a world that idolozes perfection
while it celebrates mediocrity;
and so quite by choice
I live my hermit life, and retreat by night
to the mysteries of dream-darkness,
where shadowy forms shapeshift
among the mirrors of my mind until
in an instant of kaleidoscopic wonder
Clare is walking the hills of Assisi,
stones pressing through thin sandals,
and, over there, miles away,
Teresa walks, discalced; poets, singers,
prophets reach out, their hands to ours;
parallel lives, from deep within an ancient Earth
where dirt and spit and spirit form and reform,
stretch far into a vanishing point,
then return
like the perfect V of geese in flight.
bursting through on wild wings,
splitting the sky
splitting
the veil between us,
proclaiming yes! Emmaus roads
are still to be trod, and yes! saints
still gather in communion; 
visions and trust more radical now,
doubts entertained,
clouds of unknowing
embraced,
there being
no other choice.