A Pelican in the Wilderness

She sang as a bird
from the rafters;
her shroud transformed
into a plume of feathers
as she flew twixt
roof and trusses.

Her song, guttural,
bizarre such as spewed
from whence she’d come
and yet all the fires
of Beelzebub
could not harm her;
touched, as she had been
by the hand of God.

From this day on
human company
she shunned.
Not surprising
for they would bury
her alive – just a slip
of a girl as she was.
An epileptic fit –
a seizure but no one
understood; born
before her time.

Hunted as a freak –
she roamed the land
in rags; she whose breath
on glass, or so it was said,
left not a mark.
Harlots and thieves
gave her alms and in return
she bore the burden
of their sins.

Proclaimed a saint,
not by the church
but by the people,
and when death came
it was sweet, so sweet.
Christina the Astonishing,
may she ever rest in peace.