Grace

It is the third person, the Holy Ghost,

That moves when she moves.

Her eyelids are theology to me;

The whorls in her fingertips

Are a Milky Way.

Because she exists I can be sure

That God is real, and everywhere.

Catholic no more,I am thankful

For the chalices and vestments

An adolescent boy cast off in anger,

For the Midnight Masses

And the Ave Marias;

Without them I could not appreciate

This charisma, this grace.

Beauty’s rebellion tutors me

In strictures of freedom;

There is a glamour in society

That mediates the pain.

Suddenly a miraculous incident

Brings the distant near;

And wretched struggling desire

Becomes the hope of love.

Neither work nor knowledge

Have any place here;

One simply must believe.

Mystical body,precious cult

I serve, in union most alone!