Christmas Fur

I saw a ferret in church today -
Yes, a ferret - kneeling at the rail.
Well, at the rail wherever
Progress - humanist, inexorable,
Displacing ageless custom -
And modernizing renovation
Deigned to leave the rail intact.
He was just a little tike,
Say, twelve or so. Thirteen, I think.
The winter jacket on his back,
The tennis shoes, the baseball cap
Reversed, were not surprising.
But he wasn't a familiar, here,
And wouldn't stay long, I was sure.
His muzzle reached up, sought,
Resting on the high transverse.
The flat, cold shamrock marble,
Smooth, had known the touch
Of countless clasping hands
And bowing heads; the seeking hearts,
All gentled, weary, supplicant.
Two furry paws, such tender things,
Sable pressed to chill, hard stone,
Flanked the tiny orange snout.
His eyes were closed. But the deep sigh
That issued from the kneeling form
I hastened by, was not a sigh
Of peace, nor prayer, nor sleep.
He didn't weep: there were no tears,
Nor did he open up his eyes.
In reverie, I wondered what he looked upon,
As lidded, resting, up he gazed,
Before the strange and human forms:
The faces sainted with that love that's
Terror - terror which is love.
I doubted that he understood.
I hoped not. Too young, innocent,
As all beasts are, and children. Indeed,
Not for him this place was built,
Nor for his sort a death took place,
A winter's birth, once unremarked.
Because his kind, they are not us.
A cloying tang of incense came,
The turpen reek of boughs of pine,
Fresh static snow was in the air,
The taste of the cathedral, where
A small boyferret knelt, pursuing
Motionless, in winter's chill,
The prey of mind and heart.
From niches high and carven lofts
There came a quiet, treble echo,
Trembling like uncertain flutes,
An adolescent growl intrudes:
The gentle voice of the ferretboy.
It held no summer laughter, playful lilt.
There was no sound of angels, there.
For his kind, they are not us,
And their eternal fate, unknown.
Yet while I listened, rapt and haunted,
Round me grew a visitation:
Vestments black and silken, coffin,
Honey-scent of candles, incense,
Doric song of day of wrath.
Dies Irae, Dies Illa:
Earth - shall - shake, a trumpet-call,
And heaven's curtain, torn and rent,
Will pass unmourned the falling stars.
The graves are sundered, nature quakes,
As rank corruption, ashes sere, and mould
Arise again as living beings.
Yet not in hope: for judgment, perfect,
Final, finished then, shall come.
The secret past, a book well script,
Before all eyes is opened -
To all ears opened, read. And fears
And hopes, and causes, tears
Are worthless now, and no defense.
En masse, Creation stands; alone
Each one, to face the final death,
And stricken, tremble at their peril,
While they are divided, casually,
As goats from sheep and wheat from chaff.
And like the world, and heaven sundered, so too
Shall be many hearts and loves.
I wondered why he sang that song
At Christmas. Did the winter cold
So speak of death and darkness
That medieval chant and solemn song
Had found his heart receptive?
Or do Yuletide memories haunt him,
Ghosts and echoes from his past?
Yet not in faith he sang, I knew.
Because his kind, they are not us.
And dark or light, the choice
Between, which goeth by forever
Is not required of furry ones.
And of their fate, and of the hearts
Of these: we Men know not.
Then with a breath, the ferretboy
Began to sing again, continued,
And the "Salva Me" which touched
The quiet, sacred emptiness
That afternoon, did touch my heart.
For, brief, I glimpsed the meaning,
Of his song, the cry within.
"Somefur, please come be my friend," he sang.
"This world, I didn't make it; neither
Did I ever ask to be. You see,
I'm stranded. Weak and small. An orphan.
Doomed by marching time to pass a tiny while
Alone. Between the dark and final darkness.
Here where even love seems so unreal."
I didn't hear the rest. I sat inside myself,
A warmer, deeper place. His heart and mine,
They're not so different.
So I didn't see him rise and make his way
Along the aisle. But he stopped before a statue -
Francis, brother of the beasts - stretching up
To reach behind. As if... as if to fluff a tail.