98 - The Creed in a Pagan Season

The Creed in a Pagan Season
By Harold G. McCurdy

The seasons in their annual round
Bring us reflections out of phase
With bodies going into the ground
After their few or many days.

Not everyone is born in spring
Or settles into a winter sleep:
Death may arrive when the birds sing;
Birth, when the silent snow lies deep.

The divine Scriptures yearly unfurled
That culminate in the return
Of Proserpine from the underworld
Fall short of brightening the solemn urn.

Pagan at heart as we may be,
It's less by the seasons than the Creed
That the compassionate Trinity
Comes to our aid in our most need.

Harold G. McCurdy, who describes himself as "a Southerner and a Methodist," was for many years Professor of Psychology, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Taking early retirement to pursue his hobby, poetry, he has published three volumes of poems, some of which have appeared in THEOLOGY TODAY.