When God's white eye lifts slowly in the east
and heats to vapour the swollen millrace of dreams
that call the priest
awake and up and into dazed attention,
and thankfulness arises in his heart
for light and warmth
and all the teeming stuff of earthy life
that comes with just a little tilling
and ancestral knowing of the place,
the woodpecker his alarm,
the timid deer his wife,
then he knows no better way to start
than touching forehead to the ground
and painting blessing
in every chamber of his heart
so that it leaks a bit with every beat
and blesses every tiny space
just like the worms beneath his feet.
From my collection My Mother is an Old Elephant. Please buy a copy!