A Scriptual Geologist And His Daughter Admire The Malvern Hills

Today young earth is bathed
in His best gold

the warm hillocks shaped
by Creation and Flood -

perfect arcs and angel-trees
moulded by His own hand.

The earth is a reflection
of the greater image -

the holy river of solid belief -
and the scriptural geologist

points westward to where
the sky is much darker, so

dark that he adjusts his top hat
in stern reprimand of the

pegmatite and siluran beds
(handiwork of the devil)

the pagan forests
where farm-boys

and their dogs idle away
into mischief.

He rakes raw earth
with his walking stick

seeking out God's minerals,
pokes the glittering pre-Cambrian

slopes, prays at the sheer
rock-wall of his faith.

"Father, O Father!" says his daughter and lifts
her petticoat by a stream

dips her feet into unfamiliar
waters, washes an unreformed stone

she has found there. But deep in prayer
he does not see or hear

as she holds it to the sun,
tempted by the faintest image -

a forgotten creature that dragged
itself onto shore,

stood upright to be
prized as her treasure.