Buon Compleanno (Happy Birthday), al Papa
Rome – April 16, 2009
What cake for the Pope’s birthday?
Does he order one with a cannoli filling
from Randazzo’s, the Italian Bakery
that John Basilone frequented
in Raritan, New Jersey?
Almonds nestled in the real whipped cream
and a layer of chocolate as well?
From where do the candles come?
One convent in the world selected
from 1,500 applicants to mold them?
Or does his Consigliere run out to the
Euro store, that afternoon?
Pity poor Antonio, the altar boy
selected to light the 82 stalks
with one of those candle lighters,
in the shape of a shepherd’s hook.
Antonio complained to his Mamma
he did not want to do it.
What if he dripped the wax upon the whipped cream
as it dripped one day upon the altar cloth?
Since I was in Rome,
a gift for the Pope, appropriate.
I thought about getting him a “Bottiglia”
until watching one morning
truck after truck
of Fed Ex deliveries pass a Swiss Guard’s gate.
Could they really receive so much every day
at the Vatican?
“No”, the guard remarked.
“These are just the bottles sent by
all the world’s monasteries –
their best liquore, brandies and gropa,
the wines – and the champagne
from the nuns who manage Chateauneuf-du-Pape
the ‘New Castel of the Pope’ in Avignon.
All gifts – for the birthday of a Pope.”
Something unique then.
Something no one else would think to send.
I told my wife I selected an Alice Cooper CD.
“You are right!”, she said.
“no one else would send the Pope
that, for his birthday.
But don’t you think Peter, Paul and Mary,
might be more apropos?”
That evening il Papa
loaded my gift onto his IPOD
retired to his apartment
recited the evening Angelus.
His preghiera complete
he slipped behind a bookcase
down a spiral stair case
used to escape invading armies
by the predecessors of the Chair -
exited in the greenery of the Vatican gardens.
100 yards away
he entered a gardener’s shack
there hidden by Vincenzo, a childhood friend,
a clean pair of gardening clothes,
a distinctive, but non-ostentatious
brown, European cap.
The Pope removed
all the accoutrements of his office
except the golden crucifix tucked inside his shirt
and the “Ring”
which sealed his appointment and every paper,
that – he wrapped in a bandage,
a gardener’s clipping accident.
Through a 300 year old gate
in the prison wall
a solitary walk to a Cappuccino Bar
5 blocks away.
There during the Open Mic Poetry Reading
he read a poesia about an old German man
who carried a leather satchel
a strap over his back.
Within the bag – the burdens of the entire world.
The next morning
the nun who washes the Pope’s white robes
looked down at the mud stained hem.
When he sneaks out, she thought,
he would be doing her a big favor
if he would change into his gardening clothes
in his bedroom, before he left.
Ray Brown
