‘She was a saint’

The CNMI has designated May as “Older Americans Month.” My father used to say, “She was a saint” to honor his mother, mother-in-law, and older male and female family members and friends who had passed on. Here is a quartet of sonnets on past, present, future and wannabe saints:

Some Old Saints

There have been many, we can never know them all
In burial mounds and cities, some below sea level
At peace, some were fighting when they met their fall
Defending their families, their country, fighting the devil,
Now they ossify in many the ancient reliquary
Supine in a wooden or lead box they lay low,
Or standing in a temple or church as statuary
Around their heads some religions place a halo
Farmers, fishers, cities regard many as a patron
Forming part of a Godhead to whom followers pray
Goddesses of mercy, Kuan Yin, Virgin Mary their matron
Animals, boats, crops get blessed on their patron saint’s day
St. Peter was crucified on a cross shaped like an ‘X’
St. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake over politics and sex

Some Future Saints

Astronomers and DNA researchers will try and find them
Social network sites won’t carry all their numerous views
On either side of the Gaza Strip or in Bethlehem
They may be an app or a small slot on the evening news
Future saints will be seen every night on some cyber stage
Biographic blogs and tattle tale tweets will tell their holy story
Robotic and partially cloned saints will be all the rage
Read their DNA strands in three dimensional glory
Some will distract us with names: monk, guru, or priest
Big trouble makers may even try to become the Pope
Yet continue to wallow in the belly of the beast
Wandering through Dante’s Inferno without any hope
There are future saints among our own sisters and brothers
If they died having loved and respected their own mothers

Some Now Saints

They are sanctified sometimes by the slightest mishap
Over a period of time their legend takes shape
Murdered by terrorists, taken en masse by kidnap
Brutalized on buses and in fields with gang rape
Superstitious astrologists say born under a bad sign
Prophecies ignored by sanctimonious church goers
Brought closer to heaven with beer, whiskey or wine
Saved for a productive life by vaccine growers
Gassed and jailed for anti war and civil rights protests
Neglected and ignored by some, they were all kind
Fearful of criminal perpetrators released without arrest
Vaguely remembered when their good deeds come to mind
Many modern saints you won’t recognize when you meet
They may be your friends or neighbors across the street

Saints: Some Honeybees and Some Wannabes

most mothers are saints, grandmas, aunties, and sisters
and second cousins are sweet sainted honeybees
bustling in kitchens with flour, butter, and eggs
baking bread, cakes, and pies for nascent wannabes
there are wannabe saints who promised the world to some girl
then left before she delivered the baby or in the next few years
the baby still in diapers they played lover boy and churl
their trip to sainthood left in the lurch they shifted genital gears
saintly worker bees continue their love making money/honey
proving daily their potential in providing for the queen
in the hive are the drones for whom daily work is not funny
their wings fanning the way to sainthood somewhere in between
wannabes go from being stamen with pistil flower to flour
while honeybee saints drip honeycomb hour by sticky hour