SAINT THERESA AND THE FIREMAN

She was the tall candle
In a cold cathedral;
And he the wayward moth
That came to tease
Her flickering flame;
And when she scorched his wings,
So he fell fluttering
Beneath her shifting shadows,
She neither felt joy nor blame.

She was the shy splendour
That wrapped her feelings
In a January flower;
And he the bumblebee
That came to test her nectary;
And she – exalted by her power
To entice with ice –
Felt no need to shake her snow gown free.

Then she was the Host
That gave him elevation;
And he, like a lark, thrilled
On the tremor of the rise.
But the dew point was an icy ablution,
And she said, “Greed is a pollution;
Nor can lust become sublime –
For it but chides with years.
Thus it is my paradise
To feel a freedom in the confined:
To become a connoisseur of tears
That never moisten the eyes.”