the real saints hung

The real saints hung
their hearts in heaven, their only cloak
on the door hook, with thin white
legs, thin hair, hung their modest
prayers mid-air.

The real saints burrowed each gospel word of theirs
in the ground, ate the locust they found. Piety
put holes it their sandles, so they washed each other's feet.
They would eat at a wooden table, dim light. In the commune gardens
burrowed their lonliness to dig up what they might.

Christians go sick with themselves (so full of freeways, so barren).
They swear the graces of God have gone still
as surfaces of lakes in morning will: our lives,
the long slow wings of a heron, so methodically
near but never breaking surface, façade, veneer.

So, we wait in lines at McDonald's,
impatient. So, we run
away from meditation, from secret.

And I can not say I see it, but do not despair
all you who suffer from a Kingdom we fail
to receive here. We are real, and still
simply become as the one real saint who hung.

Only repent. It has all already been done.