Unorthodox Priest by Peter Neary-Chaplin

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!

A Lenten Fast

I’ve given up thinking for Lent.
Too much energy has been spent
on that word ‘thought’
which always seems to come up
short.

Crazed northern lights are jazzing in my head
made mad by solar flares
and dancing like spring hares
their eyes and blood all red.

I’m just going to sit and watch the show
and care not to know why
there’s this titanic tug
between my little leaping mind
and that performing sky.

I shall just see
and feel
and be
and clap my grizzled hands
with childlike glee.

From My Mother is an Old Elephant, available here.