In Honor Of The Painter: Keating Poem by Bernard Kennedy

I was a young altar boy,
at the rail, holding the paten,
the golden plate,
under the chin of communion
seekers-
an encounter, like Moses
with his beard, he knelt,
to God.
Domine non sum dignus,
and received the
divine, I am who I am.
His eyes closed, beret folded
and reception, holy with bow-
his wall paintings, The Baptism,
the Resurrection, carefully implied
an Incarnation, and Aran paradise.
Then after reception back through
Ballyboden to his studio,
biblical and prophetic.
Passing alongside Yeats
Rathfarnham Riversdale residence.