There are churches
where the Holy Spirit
sleeps in a vase
waiting for flowers.
The bells don’t arouse him,
neither the fusty hymns
nor the sexless sermons
nor pious feet shuffling
toward the meal of bread.
But when a bride comes
before her nuptials,
tickling him with the stems of roses,
he laughs and leaps at the chance
to purr in the body of a love.
At the altar he joins them,
wife and husband together,
they quiver in the wind of his breath,
excited, full of seeds and rain.
Hot and holy and generous,
he nips at their hesitating heels,
hurrying them toward the door
where the moon is rising.
1974