Poems from `The Rector'

He hurries over through the dark
to take the early Eucharist
and lifts his head to see the stars,
an altered pattern since he went to bed.

He has slept deeply
and enjoys the wind against him.
He takes long strides. It is not difficult
to believe in Destiny, he thinks

then smiles at the extravagence. A patch of meteorites,
so close that they are like a fading breath
on glass, drift through a high constellation.
For this short time, he knows,

they hardly cease, then he is in his church
and looking up into the Choir
lit by its tiers of candles.
It does not seem long

before the few are coming to him
...