A Glory
Soft headed, out there through the mist,
the sun nothing but a sense of light.
No time, no place. The vapour
carries it all. It’s enough.
Given the time gracefully, the vision holds
clear through to the centre of the earth:
being here, my head opens up all the way
to the top of the sky.
Many have trodden here, may many others
continue; creatures of slime or of feathers
pass by, they nibble and peck, they shit,
they show their colours.
I can tell what this is for, if I worry
less and listen to the whispering glory.
We’re clergy whatever our collar, we
sip our secular claret.
Peter Daniels’s publications include Mr Luczinski Makes a Move (HappenStance, 2011), Counting Eggs (Mulfran Press, 2012), and selected poems of Vladislav Khodasevich from Russian (Angel Classics, 2013), which was the Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation. Twitter: @chintz35 www.peterdaniels.org.uk http://eggcounter.wordpress.com/