Catechism for a Witch's Child by J.L.Stanley for National Poetry Month

Found at Dianne Sylvan's old weblog, Dancing Down the Moon

Catechism for a Witch's Child by J.L.Stanley

When they ask to see your gods
your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird's wing
tell them you belive
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open
spilling streams of molten ice to earth
and tell them how you drank
the holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your mother
who never taught you
death was life's reward
but who believed in the earth
and the sun
and a million, million light years
of being.