Priest by Zbigniew Herbert

PRIEST

                        to the worshippers of deceased religions

A priest whose deity

descended to earth

In a half-ruined temple

revealed its human face

I impotent priest

who lifting up my hands

know that from this neither rain nor locust

neither harvest nor thunderstorm

—I am repeating a dried-out verse

with the same incantation

of rapture

A neck growing to martyrdom

is struck by the flat of a jeering hand

My holy dance before the altar

is seen only by a shadow

with the gestures of a street-urchin

—And nonetheless

I raise up eyes and hands

I raise up song

And I know that the sacrificial smoke

drifting into a cold sky

braids a pigtail for a deity

without a head