VENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS

Blessed is He who came to Earth as a Bull

And ravished our virgin mother and ran with her

Astride his back across the plains and mountains

Of the whole world. And when He came to Ocean,

He swam across with our mother on his back.

And in His wake the peoples of the world

Sailed trafficking in salt, oil, slaves and opal.

Hallowed be His name, who blesses the nations:

From the Middle Kingdom, gunpowder and Confucius.

From Europe, Dante and the Middle Passage.

Shiva is His lieutenant, and by His commandment

Odysseus brought the palm tree to California,

Tea to the Britons, opium to the Cantonese.

Horses, tobacco, tomatoes and gonorrhea

Coursed by His will between Old Worlds and New.

In the Old Market where children once were sold,

Pirated music and movies in every tongue,

Defying borders as Algebra trans-migrated

From Babylon to Egypt. At His beck

Empire gathers, diffuses, and in time disperses

Into the smoky Romance of its name.

And after the great defeat in Sicily

When thousands of Athenians were butchered

Down in the terrible quarries, and many were bound

And branded on the face with a horse’s head,

Meaning this man is a slave, a few were spared

Because they could recite new choruses

By the tragedian Euripides, whose works

And fame had reached to Sicily—as willed

By the Holy One who loves blood sacrifice

And burnt offerings, commerce and the Arts.