My Santiago

To be Pagan

(Mexico City 2017)

Today we contrasted the old and new,

The pagan and the Catholic,

But even as I say this,

I question my conditioned response,

To ‘what’ and ‘how’ we believe.

Surely Guadeloupe

and its convoluted ‘miracles’

Is nothing but a delicious fiction too?

A fiction created by priests in black gowns,

Walking their rounds -

To keep their place,

their authority,

their power?

How is the worship of a ‘Virgin Mother’,

Somehow more reasonable than worship of the Sun?

Or the Moon?

Some may well say

that it makes perfect sense

To worship the Sun;

The giver of life!

To be a pagan worshipper

Is to acknowledge