PRIEST by Knut Odegard
Priest
Uncle Knut was a priest.
He was a practical man, but Latin
was Greek to him.
He died after his retirement, he stood
and dug the site for the new house
when his heart gave way.
He was more an electrician
than a preacher, he began all his speeches
by saying: “I’m not much of a one for speeches”
and he was right about that.
He did not really have much to teach
his parishioners, they had their own troubles
with their births, with their love and their death
and he did not have words for such things.
But he had learnt how to repair
electric wires and he visited people in their homes
and mended short circuits and defective
fuse boxes, he screwed lamps into place
and wherever he had been, there was light.