On Explaining a Bishop

(I might have posted an earlier draft of this poem, but I've been working on it since . . .)

It’s a sunny August Tuesday, and
the cathedral is gently and quietly busy,
my task within it being to wander with intent,
seriously cassocked and wearing my chaplain’s badge.
I like my cathedral days; for one thing
I have to leave my work at home,
and it is nice, for a day,
not to have the weight of it.

I have people I’ve promised to pray for,
so I light a couple of candles near the shrine,
and pause a while, commend them each by name.
Then I stand back for a moment, for above me
is one of my favourite windows, joyously bright today.
“Excuse me?”  I turn, and smile at
a lady of about my own age, small boy in tow.
“Could you explain to my grandson
what a bishop does, please?”

The cathedral is full of recumbent bishops,
each decently robed in stone, crozier in hand;
some of them rest their feet on lions.
I talk for a while about shepherds, how they
lead and provide for the sheep.
The boy listens, nods, and then asks,
“Why does a bishop wear that funny hat?”
So I talk about Pentecost, and how the flames of fire
rested on the disciples’ heads. The bishop’s hat
is shaped like those flames, I tell him. He nods again.

“I think it looks more like a fish’s head,” he tells me.
After the boy and his granny have moved on,
I look around, and find it to be true.
All those many stone bishops lying in their niches,
feet resting on lions, and each one
wearing a fish’s head.