Rogue Reverend

Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining Into the World

If the gods bring to you
a strange and frightening creature,
accept the gift
as if it were one you had chosen.

Say the accustomed prayers,
oil the hooves well,
caress the small ears with praise.

Have the new halter of woven silver
embedded with jewels.
Spare no expense, pay what is asked,
when a gift arrives from the sea.

Treat it as you yourself
would be treated,
brought speechless and naked
into the court of a king.

And when the request finally comes,
do not hesitate even an instant—

Stroke the white throat,
the heavy, trembling dewlaps
you’d come to believe were yours,
and plunge.

Not once
did you enter the pasture
without pause,
without yourself trembling.
That you came to love it, that was the gift.

Let the envious gods take back what they can.

Jane Hirshfield
first published in Five Points, vol. II, no. 1, Fall 1997
also from The Lives of the Heart

Where God Is Leading

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Acts 8:26-40

In the movie Dogma, the heroine, Bethany, a direct descendent of Jesus, is visited by an angel. She has just said her prayers and gone to sleep, and suddenly, there’s a sound in her room, a kind of thump and a “Unh.” She fades back into sleep.

Then, out of nowhere, a fire starts in her room, but nothing is consumed. But from the fire comes a voice, “Behold the Metatron, the Herald of the Almighty and Voice of the One True God.” The main character pulls out her fire extinguisher and puts the fire out.

What are you? Bethany asks. The angel answers, “I am pissed off!” More »

Gathering Up Crumbs

Be careful with the crumbs.
Do not overlook them.

Be careful with the crumbs;
the little chances to love,

the tiny gestures, the morsels
that feed, the minims.

Take care of the crumbs;
a look, a laugh, a smile,

a teardrop, an open hand. Take care
of the crumbs. They are food also.

Do not let them fall.
Gather them. Cherish them.

~Gunilla Norris

in Becoming Bread