A poem by Les Murray

the same mirror:
mobile, glancing, we call it poetry,

fixed centrally, we call it a

religion,
and God is the poetry caught in
any religion,
caught, not imprisoned. Caught
as in a mirror

that he attracted, being in the
world as poetry
is in the poem, a law against its
closure.
There’ll always be religion around
while there is poetry

or a lack of it. Both are given, and
intermittent,
as the action of those birds –
crested pigeon, rosella parrot –
who fly with wings shut, then
beating, and again shut.