Poetry Wednesdays: "The Holy Fool"
I still haven't come up with a better title
Today’s poem comes from my book Liturgical Entanglements. It’s a book of 93 poems reflecting on the Church calendar, the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross, the Apostles’ Creed, and more.
“The Holy Fool” His grey and wiry hair falls in tangled knots; His beard is long and hallows his ancient face. He wanders the streets and talks and talks and talks, Wandering the streets without a trace Of real direction for his stumbling feet. Then I see him stop in the local park by a tree. He stops and makes himself a little seat, So he can watch a passing bumble bee. He talks to the bee and looks up at the tree and smiles, Throws back his head and laughs and laughs and laughs. I watch him closely, staring all the while, “Why are you laughing?” I get the courage to ask. “I see the fairies flying with the bees; I see the angels dancing in the trees.”
The notion of a holy fool really goes back at least to 1 Corinthians where the Apostle Paul says of his mission, “but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” But there was also a notion prevalent in the Middle Ages, and I am told still somewhat prevalent in Eastern Orthodoxy particularly as it is practised still in the East, of the holy fool as someone we might now describe as having mental health issues. The poor and the “mad” were often seen as people who saw the world in a different, and sometimes more clear, light. They could see realities the rest of us could only theorize about. For a fascinating example of this, I recommend this old article of David Bentley Hart’s “Therapeutic Superstition”.