Saint Jerome lived with a community

Of souls in a stone house.

He had a donkey and a young lion.

Winter evenings the brown donkey

Went out for wood, the proud lion

Always his faithful companion.

One night passing merchants seized

The donkey. The lion

Returned to the house

And was accused by Jerome

Of having eaten his friend!

The punishment was merciful—the lion

Assumed the donkey’s burden

And went alone each winter evening

Across the fields

For firewood. The lion missed

The donkey, but he never

Felt wronged or misunderstood.

Years passed. And then

The merchants, with troubled conscience,

Detailing their shame, returned the donkey

To Saint Jerome.

The donkey and the lion

Resumed happily their winter schedules.

Everyone was forgiven. This is where

The story usually ends.

But months passed

And the lion, who missed his new usefulness,

Changed, became jealous, and snapped—

He ate the donkey under the stars

Among the cold alders.

He returned to the stone house

With a load of wood on his back.

Saint Jerome, not to be confused by experience,

Announced to the community

That the donkey was again lost,

That the lion had returned

With firewood, that the lion was bloody,

No doubt from combat, no doubt having attacked

The cruel merchants who had once again

Stolen his companion. But Jerome knew—

From then on the downcast lion

Was excused from all work, was left

To age by the fire.

Jerome, dressed in a sack,

Went out each night

Barefoot across the blue snow

And returned with branches

Tied to his back.

He was a saint. It was like that… .