Mercy

And afterwards, furnaced by midday Roman heat

and tired steps away from St. Peters and the Pope’s
golf-cart ride through the square’s adoring crowd,
we were resting within an ancient arched portico

when the two white pigeons winged down, settling
on the t-shirt shoulders of our eight-year-old daughter.
Cautiously—half-delighted, half-frightened— she

raised arms and the birds stepped along them, perching
finally on uplifted hands. Gravely Jeanne looked at
us then, with a spirit that made us feel mysteriously

taller, younger, fortunate, cared for. . . whatever word
best describes that which we search restless worlds for,
pry open resentful hearts for, drop to bended knees for,

but which seems to come only as those pigeons came.
When we’re worn. When we’ve all but given up on
making more of our day or the year or ourselves,

having lost faith that such finery will ever be bestowed
on us again. Yet isn’t that how it arrives? Unbidden
and glossed so abundantly that momentarily, like

children, we don’t care if it never comes again.