Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve

I liked the white flowers,
the white robes of the priests,
the soaring music
from the choir up the back.

I liked the wafting incense,
borne up the aisle
in metal bowls
on swinging chains.

I liked the Latin: ‘Adeste Fidelis’
more sonorous by far
than ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’,
‘Dominum’ than ‘Christ the Lord’.

I liked the late hour, the dark,
the magic of midnight;
my Catholic cousins’ excitement,
the festive, dressed-up crowd.

I was raised Agnostic,
streamed Protestant at school
for compulsory Religious Ed.,
and wound up Pagan.

Was it Midnight Mass
gave me my taste for robes and ritual,
music, incense, exotic words?
(Not quite what anyone had in mind.)


30 Poems in 30 Days, 2010: 23
Prompt: A poem that takes place at a public gathering