His or Her

I have been thinking about his.
So many of my poems, about God
the possessive is his
A father God, that loving
benevolent image
Sistine Chapel, the masters of old

A loving patronymic, patriarch
the father in the story, the Prodigal Son
arms open wide, while I was yet still
far astray, blind to him

Never, or at least rarely, her
We don’t often see the feminine
of the divine, the holy
rarely see her loving nurturing hands
holding our cooing infancy
shielding us from the trouble, harm
We see instead the shepherd,
the priest, the king

As I write these lines I wonder
where she can replace he,
his could become hers,
a mother take the place of the father,
Or even the Son a Daughter become,
the paternal instead maternal
We shall have to see
what words I am given

May 1, 2008