a witch in church

i look up at her in awe
the mother of god
i see nothing and no one different
to god herself
the star goddess
when i look up at you
holding the divine child
i see nothing and no one different
to the ancient and strong ones
brimo bearing brimos
only pomegranates and vines
only snakes and stars
only crescents and worlds

i walk clockwise which feels strange for me in this land
around the insides of your cathedral walls
and i count backwards through the stations
of the cross
i only see in this
a strong story i cherish and know deeply well
i weep tears for you
divine child
who i feel in me
i am shaken at the hypocrisy and vileness
that i stand now in a building forged by empire and colony
stamped onto stolen and sovereign country
forced onto stolen and sovereign peoples
the terror of that
and yet your story
divine child
anointed one
is our story
and i see their clever and deceitful trick
you are the son of man
and the witch
who walks here
is a child
of the daughters of man and the sons of god

you are reminding me
in this flowering gnosis
that you and i
this mystic state
are the same state
the flame between the horns
and the serpent and the apple
the flower and the star

i pray at your shrines
not because i feel beholden
or because you are better
i have felt greater and more palpable power
in lovemaking with no mention of your names
or in the sea singing
or in witch covens in hill and heath
but you walk among us
in the same spirit of ecstasy
and knowledge
as the witch’s devil
who takes all and gives all

history tells me that you were a nazarene
that your mother was married
that you were of the jewish people
and had jewish lives
that you had siblings
a ministry
baptised by john the baptist
crucified by the roman empire

tainted and deceptive church myth and folk legend
says that the jewish people murdered you
and the whole world
still seems set to crucify and hate them
and yet hold the people to account
for their own series of revelations
and reckonings

you have never asked me to worship you
or bow my head to you
i am not compelled to
instead at times i am happy to come speak with you
to praise the mother of god
to sing her names
to honour the saints and the gods and the spirits
and to be with you as if you were and are a human
like the most human of gods
and challenge you

there have been times i have demanded your audience
as a witch
sitting in a church
and demanded your help to be with the poor and the oppressed
i can not say that a jewish messianic man with an apocalyptic crusade
would care for a brown queer witch
sitting precariously in a church
lighting candles to your mother
but you come
and you listen
and you bleed holy blood

i owe nothing to you
neither my salvation nor my power
and yet my heart brims when i see you and yours
the same way it does when i behold the great icons and shrines
of the gods of my father and the gods of ireland and albion
you may be the son of man and the son of god
but i too am a child of god herself
and i was taught to claim that right and take up my space here too

in the church i may not find peace or power
but within the great church of your people
i sometimes meet you
and i hear your voice
in the compassionate and willing tones
of those who simply wish to feed the hungry
and heal the sick
and love one another
until the time comes to do it all again

i pray for a time
your people are led by trans women and black girls
by marys and lesbians
by old women and sex-workers
and i see them
you do not deny them
they are shining with radiant and holy power
and in that i see that the witches and your ministry
are intertwined serpents
renewing the cosmos

i am no christian
and in many places and many times
for that alone
for so boldly proclaiming such truth
i would be brutalised and murdered
i am witch
and in many places and many times
for that alone
i would be committed to the noose, the water, the fire
i hide not in you or your mother
but when i see the mother of god on my father’s shrines
or hear my aunty say
we are animists
we see power everywhere
we pray everywhere
i know you are with us too
x