Please, share my little table, here
at this pleasant, if too hot, window.
I'll not – oops, don't spill, don't drop your book.
Here, let me help you to your chair.
Better? Comfortable now? Crowded,
no? And hot. Father Kyriakos,
your humble servant. As I said, I’ll not
disturb you.

   You know your Greek then? Kyriakos
is the Lord’s man indeed, purveyor
beneath St. Tatiana’s brick towers
(if a lowly priest might so presume)
of Mother Church’s Holy Sacraments.
Her bright facade rises proudly there,
only a quick stroll away, in the sunshine,
enchantingly in full view of our window
here, until they raised that gray and glowering
bank, to hide her face. But your drink,
it's satisfactory?

   Amaretto, you say? Bitterish but sweet Amaretto.
Gift of the grateful widowed Saronno innkeeper,
grateful - and graceful, I surmise - model
for Luini's painted Queen of Heaven.
Ave Maria gratia plena. Mine’s ouzo.
Greek. Greek name and Greek drink
for a man Roman in spirit as Gregorius Magnus.
But that thick book, there, squeezed
high under your arm, marks a reader,
a meditative lover of quiet placidity.
Forgive a talkative, lonely Lord’s man:
you came to sit in peace, to share your sweet
Amaretto with your sweet and private woman’s
intellection.

   Unless you ask – did you? - minutiae of
Luini’s unnamed widowed lover's gift
of woman's gratitude? I've told you all:
that sweet tincture now touching your lips
was, they say, her divine invention.
A blessed gift she gave him; not to mention
impersonating, for his brush, the Spouse
of the Holy Ghost; or her patient nights
patiently... But enough. You've discerned,
from my archaic features, from these musty
Romish things I wear, I’d sooner eschew
dangerous talk of Eve's daughters: indeed,
dear God, with Eve's daughters. How scrupulously,
shielding our somber vows, we watch our loosened
tongues and bowels, yet ever, as Adam, disappoint.
Rather tell me: what's that thick book
now hidden under your slim elbow?
Then I'll let you read it. (How prettily
you raise your arm to show me, sweet Amaretto
level in your glass.)

   Dostoyevski? Crime and Punishment?
Sanctity and madness so close-set
in one man’s soul. And in mad
Dostoevski's own mad Russian?
Hah! You’re a scholar, then? Blessed
state, to rest secure - do you feel it? -
in Tatiana martyr’s celestial, sainted bosom.
But Raskolnikov? I'd thought him more
my line than yours. He’s, at very least,
more needful of God’s Sacramental
healing than of your slender – pardon –
than of Sonia’s slender arms. But
now you wish to...

   Oh, you’d return to sweet martyr
Tatiana? You, of course, a scholar, demand
scholarly details of the patroness of scholars.
Tatiana, Roman girl of Christian family, defying
Apollo under Alexander Severus,
devoted her virginity to Christ.
Suffering days of cruel Roman suplicio
(stripped, beaten with rods, torn under claws
of iron, sliced with razors, thrown to hungry
lions, cast in fire, eyes and breasts
torn out and off), she was daily healed
of holy angels, her cruel wounds emitting
sweet fragrance. At her signum crucis
pagan temples, altars, idols collapsed,
crumbled to the ground. Finally, felled
by beheading, angels flew her sealed spirit
to Christ, the virgin nun’s Holy Spouse,
safe to His Father’s House. Now, honored
more by Greek Byzantines and Russians
than the Roman loci of her hallowed
virgin life and holy martyrdom,
she daily intercedes for you - if
you be scholar, which you’ve not denied -
being our designated saintly patron
and protectress. But this is uncomfortable
stuff to go with sweet and comforting Amaretto?
Shall I fill your glass?

   There. Now you’ll read your Dostoyevski.
Pictures? Scenes of Tatiana’s bloody torment
you mean? We’ve one. One venerable, ancient,
honest icon, not for casual viewing.
But, should you, perchance or providentially
enter her house a quick stroll away
from here, where you sip your Amaretto and I
my Greek ouzo, there, where the sun
shines behind the bank, find me there;
permit me to explain, even expound,
if it please you - sine pecunia, for the honor
is mine - the hidden intensions of Tatiana’s
hidden, blazing icon. Hidden, you ask,
for indecorousness? Crudity? You,
pupil of Raskolnikov, mention
indecency? True, marks of naked sanctity
incite brutish public contempt, but under
devout, knowing, scholar’s eyes, Tatiana’s
wounds still emit fragrance sweeter
than Amaretto, demure as bleeding new-shorn lambs,
decorous as the wounds of God’s Own
Lamb qui tollis peccata mundi.

   You demand miracles? Last Holy
Friday a youth, handsome as you, was found,
at confessional, under licit priestly questioning,
incapable of penitence for fleshly
sins: fetid sins, unsayable sins,
even to a scholar. But once stripped
- he demanded it under Tatiana’s
bleeding icon - rather, he begged as a babe
the liberating gift of penance: penance.
begged it, with tears, in that reasoned, effectual,
archaic mode. You don’t understand? I’ll say it
frankly - he desired corporal penance
for corporal sin. Yes, I, Kyriakos,
Lord’s man and shepherd - begged, I say -
dutifully called to attend and mete those needed
conditions of absolution to a penitent lamb
bowed naked under Tatiana’s image
of implacable judgment and boundless loving intercession,
indecent only to lost and hell-bound blasphemers.
And here’s your miracle: I sent the youth,
after a stressful hour, back to the street,
filled with sublime celestial tranquility and Peace
of God. But you’re stressed my child? Here,
let me wipe your brow. I’ll bring another
Amaretto. Please, on my tab. Confession?
Daily at six, or, if preferred, by appointment.

   There. Drink all of it. We’ve time enough.
Under her icon? As you wish, my child.

   We’re ready then? For perhaps better
discretion, I’ll not escort you there. Meet me
in holy cloistered sequestration under
the roof of Tatiana’s holy temple, there,
only a quick stroll away, where the sun
still shines behind the bank.

01/25/2011

Posted on 01/25/2011
Copyright © 2025 James Unger