"Saint of the Gutters"
*A poem inspired by a photograph in honor of the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, September 4, 2016
By Katherine Harris Szerdy
More inspiring than the most eloquent sermon
Are the tireless feet of the Saint of the gutters,
Soles, never supported by Sketchers or Asics, leathery, thickly calloused from decades spent ministering to the poorest of the poor on unnamed streets in Calcutta,
Toes, arthritic, gnarled from years of gripping the edges of thin-soled sandals,
Nails, yellowed, ridged, never painted or pedicured, always pointing in the direction of the Lord's work,
Heels, rough, scarred, never--no not once--elevated by Prada or Marcus Jacobs,
dig determinedly into dirt parched by drought, as she stoops to meet the gaze of a tiny, frail girl, abandoned and homeless,
Or scoop out of a trench the skeleton of a man, naked, skin caked with sun-baked excrement.
Those tiny feet,
Feet of a fisherman,
of a fisher of men,
of a saint,
A sight so hideous yet radiant with the holiness of one whose compassion oozed through her pores
Like the perfume of angels
A sight that could reform the hardest heart,
Heal the most deep seated pain
Mend the most broken marriage
Shatter the most stubborn stronghold
Of addiction, of shame, of fear and of hate.
Tiny ordinary feet of a woman who did everything with extraordinary love
Tiny feet belonging to a saint
In a blue and white sari
With well-worn sandals,
This Saint of the Gutters
who left shoes too large to fill
By any man
And an example for
Every man to emulate.
