Relic

Relic

The church is dedicated to a saint I’ve never heard of –
To a Supine of Sardinia (or possibly Southend).
A mural might have shown him once, before they scraped the dirt off,
While the stain-glass is a patched-up jumble showing “Christ with Friend”.
A reliquary hold his middle finger, so the wall-plaque claims,
And possibly an eyeball, (though it may have been a sprout.)
I asked the local vicar what his story was, but he just blamed “the heathens”
And said Supine was a martyr to his gout.

The organist was more forthcoming, gushing over miracles –
Like turning water into thirst, or plague into the pox.
He brought a locust back to live by breathing on its spiracles,
And made an old Ionic column weep, and found lost socks.
He even taught a fish to swim, and once out-stared a snail,
And he claimed that worms were demons when they crawled from out the earth.
He went upon crusade – and found, then lost the Holy Grail,
And he prophesised the world would end the year before his birth.

I wondered why no other churches recognised the man ?
Have we all become so cynical, insisting on the proof,
Until we haven’t got the space to celebrate an also-ran ?
Why, the next thing, we’ll demand on prophets only telling truth !
But in the end, he met his fate when challenged on a cliff,
When he said that God gave wings to all those strong in their belief.
And so he died for faith – and just as real as any myth,
Now he’s patron saint of bucket-men, (or possibly false teeth…)

When I wrote this, I thought it was too flippant.  So I wrote the fourth verse to give it a bit more weight.  However, on reflection it feels like an anti-climax, so I cut it off and present it below:

Relegated Relic

The church is dedicated to a saint I’ve never heard of –
And yet somebody still knows him – and today that’s me, and you.
And there’s plenty more I could have told, and I barely know a third of
All the things that come attached to him, (regardless if they’re true).
And I wonder if they’ll still remember me, a thousand years from now ?
And if they do, what strange, outrageous feats will I perform ?
So then here’s to Saint Supine, who made a convert of a cow –
And let us celebrate the pilgrims who have wandered from the norm.