February 11, 2013

• St. Peter’s, Rome, The Destiny of Benedict

  The last time I was in Rome, more than a decade ago, I am certain that I walked 15 miles or more in one day.  I took in a DaVince exhibit, the courier who had arranged so much of it, was a dear friend’s son in his joyful untamed days of his mother’s amusement. I was certain that it would be of humor to the friend who needed amused at the time, for she was fully determined that her diabetic condition would not  leave her as an amputee, something she feared to the core.  All I was looking for was a clean ladies rest room, and thus I saw the sign among all the Government buildings, Their national museum, so with tired limbs the twelve dollars for a clean restroom and a cool place to rest just seemed to be the perfect bookends..

  There is something about Rome which makes sense, for it constantly unearths ruins from ages past, and yet it seems to take no notice that all that we long to see from The Spanish Steps at one extreme to the Vatican at the other – The antiquity of eroding fountains from hundreds of years earlier crumble with their trickle of fresh water for the thirsty.  Buildings have major damage in the eye of one who looks closely, and the nights are ruined with the constant hum of the mopeds.  Most European nations have these, but there seems to be little effort to quiet the noise, to clean the air which eats away at monuments and even at all living things; And yet the center of the known earth feels like Rome, and I thought that, might I have a second chance at life, then let me be a Roman, one with long dark curls and olive skin.  Let me wear the white wedding gown and marry in the church, gather in a Grotto with all friends and neighbors who would dance until morning, until their bodies were warm and perspring the hot sweat of evening gone and morning to come, but that slight scent which draws them to each other.

  My love and I would go away, and open the tiny treasures for each other.  I would have order pure rose oil from Paris, touch it to our perfect cotton sheets from Egyptian cloth, but for him, it would be all oils scented with spice from tropical places, but taken pure from seeds and buds, for I love fragrant oil which lingers on the skin and takes away the friction of my skin, his skin.  I would love deeply, and take in the air of my marriage bed empire, for we have so few empires which are our own, so few places to open our whole selves without the intrusion of the other world — That one which is not ours — If I were to be born Roman, that is to say, then I would belong to history in a way where I feel no belonging now.

  St Peters is where most of us go every time, for there is something there that is so powerful that once you know Catholicism, you are called back.  There I have cried for lost loved ones, and lit candles for the sick, begged God for the miracle of my brother in law’s recovery so long ago; But he died, and Huntington’s Disease is not cured, but at St. Peters, the prayers from its inception climb the walls, crawl in to the catacombs, over the Vatican treasure, the jewels, the precious stones, the finest cloth of all the earth — All is there within the prayers. I see them now, voices like mine bouncing of walls, projecting like little fireflys, the prayers, the unanswered; The pprayers, the ones which seemed almost miracle.  If I could fill the whole of St. Peters with lights that flicker and speak to each other;  just little specks, then I would have it all filled with the dead and with the living, for there is something powerful there beyond the understanding of humankind.  It is the goodness stuck to every particle within the walls, so many walls where evil wants to burn, to incinerate it all pushing back on the Etruscan trail, back, back, for evil wants people to hide out once more, to wait for the slaughter.

  St. Peters has the unseen guards, and if evil began to colapse it all and to shake thunderously then The  Holy Spirit Window with the Eagle on wing shall begin to decend and to fly, the quiet bird which watches, I tell you; it shall fly.  I can see the Eagle,  the flickering of lights, and I want the choirs to hush — just for a moment.  Please all noise and motion, for a moment; could  simply stop, for then we shall hear the rustle of all the prayers upon the wind, and I will feel my mother, my father, my brother, and you shall hear the sounds which you have waited for.

  This day has meaning, for a pope has just spoken that he shall leave the office, and he knows that all the treasures, those two he will simply believe, for he is a poor man.  He was born to parents, loved as any child, and fed from the same kettles as the poor many times.  Does Benedict know the hour is near, that something drastic must be done, for old ways have too long been lurking through the flickering particles of human kind, the dead and the living?   Was he asked to move like a mountain, for the battle ahead is too daunting.  Poor man, tired soul, I admire his farewell, and so many others should follow; Follow.  The Holy Spirit needs to fly, dive in the darkness, close the door on the offenders, for children have been hurt, and secrets were kept, and it is then when despair marches in. 

  I will walk again one day along the street of angels, and I shall walk until I tire at day’s end, but you shall not see me.  We may  walk together, then we laugh at the worry all left behind, and flicker flicker on before the great doors close on our reward.

  Barbara Everett Heintz, Author of Pinkhoneysuckle, the book on Amazon, Kindle, and Create Space

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  • 11:54 pm
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