A belt of the crozier (Comhar – Aibreán 2019)
“Our Snake who art in heaven,” *
I used to pray in all innocence
every day at school.
I hadn’t much time
for St Patrick.
I was happy enough with the day off school, of course,
and even better,
I loved the sweets
we were allowed eat on that Special Day,
a dispensation from the lenten fasting.
But as well as that,
apart from my unintentional,
Natural Heresy,
I felt the stories
that came before Patrick
were far better than those that came after.
And another thing,
the priests were always so certain,
so positive,
– which seemed odd to me,
because every time I looked
at a bishop’s crozier,
all I could see
was a question mark.
*[Our Father and Our Snake sound the same in Irish]