Ode to S. Patrick’s Day

Poem, free verse

Jameson painted billboard at Nortons Digbeth

Let the man dressed in kitchy Walmart greens,
Who is three hundred and sixty four days an agnostic,
Let him tonight be a Catholic as near he can.
And do not tell him it is Lent!
Let him drink deep the black beer and remember what wishes are.
He looks at the stars,
And sees wheeling, wonderous, shamrocked constellations there.
Let those twinkling fires descend unto his eyes,
So that he has a sober sense of Paraclete.
And hears again a giant whisper in his heart,
“See, John? Isn’t life good?”
Maybe this is the year that he will feel a little
What it is to say, “Blessed be God,
“In His Angels, and in his Saint.”