THE BLESSING Poem by Pauline Stainer

for Peter Johnson
There they were -
ordinary, unknowable,
beasts waiting to be blessed
at St. Luke in the Fields

some trying to break cover
as if they hear
the whizz of the biblical wind
in the mulberry trees

others, domesticated,
raising their symphony
for wild instruments
under the verve of prayer.

Over the Hudson River
the cloud puts out a paw,
skyscrapers stretch
with the heat

the bees of the invisible
are bleached in sunlight,
If anyone is in Christ
he is a new creature.

Nothing is like
the anxiety of animals
waiting for Adam
to name them

yet some lie down
in the enclosed garden
as if the tree of charity
sprang from their breasts.