Simplicity’s a soul undistracted;

all things it knows straight on, a well-coming.

It feels the roughness of the leaf, the humming

bee it hears; opens up if interacted

knows the smoothness of the water’s flowing

the touch of wolf: the fur, the ears and eyes;

the call of birds, their lovely songs and cries.

Smell, sight and taste, alert the act of knowing.

Through the senses Francis life encountered,

received with joy that which the senses found

and poverty removed what would confound.

Intense his knowledge, no instant squandered.

With less, the Poverello learned the more

And nature sprang into the human mind

as it is. Itself ! After it’s own kind!

Discovered in the form that God out-poured.

Look at the creatures of the earth today

their beauty lost to a demonic creed;

no priest to cherish them as God decreed

their mystery, marvel, friendship in decay!

Francis come again! Recover what first you found

Free us from the bonds with which the earth is bound.

:Fr Harold Macdonald