“Redemption preserves itself in a small crack in the continuum of catastrophe.” ~ Walter Benjamin* Besides St. Sebastian— famously pierced with a quiver of arrows, tied to a post and abandoned for dead then miraculously nursed back to life— what other saints can we call on in these pandemic times? Some people think he was kind of a whore for suffering: as soon as he was well, he went right back with redoubled zeal to the same emperor who ordered his execution. In Palermo, one of cities hardest hit by the coronavirus and still on lockdown, the people prayed to Santa Rosalia and carried her bones in procession through the streets, bringing an end to the plague of 1624. She'd lived in seclusion for decades, shunning the world's vanities, alone in a cave on Mount Pellegrino. No parties on a Florida beach at spring break. Not even choir rehearsals in church. Then there's St. Roch, described in stories as born with the mark of a red cross on his chest— I wonder if it was a port wine stain or hemangioma. Traveling through plague-infested towns, miraculously he cured the sick with his cross. His name reminds me of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who plays Dr. Smolder Bravestone in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle— not exactly a world beset by pandemic, though all the characters face one natural calamity after another. Body bags keep filling trucks and sidewalks. Mayors and doctors go on TV every night, pleading with people to stay home to flatten the curve. Sebastian, Rosalia, Roch: the Book of Saints names that moment when the deadly cycle breaks, a miracle. Not hyssop nor sage nor cordial water. Not turning to calculating profit over PPEs, masks, and respirators. * Thanks to Peter Stephens for bringing the passage to my attention.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.