Maria Goretti

by R. D. Ashby

Purity! If ever there was a mouth-piece
for your word, if ever the ear-drum heard
unmistakably the blue-brightness
and startle of your steel, which so quickly
in the majority world rusts, and is hung up
on the walls like old crossed swords, polished
and polished, but marred - surely, it was at that
moment when my eye sees a figure menacing,
a girl soon to be stabbed to death, and the sun
on a window-pane flashing in my eye
as it did in his, stabbing him with a defiance
his foolish action tried to sequel, to quell:
yes, she lay dead; but what pathetic challenge
was death to the most radiant light in Heaven?

To that which, in Maria, even embraced the murderer!

Maria Goretti (October 16, 1890 – July 6, 1902) is an Italian virgin-martyr (though only 11 years of age at death) of the R C Church. She died from multiple stab wounds inflicted, after she refused to submit to him, by her attempted rapist, who later repented, claiming it was her prayers for him.

03-Jan-2013

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Comments on this Poem

It is indeed man that sins in each man, as Christ has died for man in each man, and obtained redemption from sin.

rdashby
06-Jan-2013 13:34 PM

Man has not changed; clay in heart man is churning lust. He shall not get a lotus, but instead only muck.

Kumarendra Mallick
05-Jan-2013 09:25 AM