From Creator to Creature

By Richard Mather

After the birds and mammals lost their speech

(the serpent's tongue having already turned to ash)

and Heaven swayed and fell to within four miles

of the earth, a disappointed God crept low into

the sea’s womb, into Mary, our lady of the ocean,

and transmuted his glory into the microscopic,

a millimetre in size, living between grains of sand

on the sea bed, eventually emerging in the form of a fish.