Photography © Chad Parenteau

 

Who Art In Heaven?

Who art in Heaven? Art Thou He or She?

How can we know almighty Heaven’s where

Our Lord or Lady lives—won’t Sheaven be

Almighty if Thou art not Père, but Mère?

Revision of Our Father’s overdue:

Thy realm is not a kingdom to await

If Thou art hallowed queen—then, if we’re too

Nefarious, should Shell not be our fate? …

High Anglicans who seek to redesign

Ecclesiastic texts need Thee to show

A sign of whether Thou art of divine

Virility or feminism—though

Expect, since elders are not big on Her,

No matter who Thou art, they’ll call Thee Sir!

 

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO., The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly. His poem was prompted by the Daily Mail story, “Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns ‘He’ and ‘Him’ when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase ‘our Father’ from the Lord’s Prayer.”

Chad Parenteau is Associate Editor of Oddball Magazine.