Epektasis

Not a blessing nailed above a door.
Not luck. Not heritage.

He walks the river path where the banks slump,
where bottles turn in weeds
and the water keeps what it’s given.

Mud on his cuffs.
A prayer worn thin,
kept in the mouth the way warmth is kept
when there’s nowhere else for it.

What comes to him is what comes to anyone:

a bird stilled by boys who wanted to see
how easy it was.
A hearth gone black.
A sound drowned by traffic and drink.
A lie dropped where no one looks.

And the unspoken request:
do something.
Make it mean.


---

The bird is lighter than expected,
all bone, ruined balance.

The boys don’t wait. They’ve learned
how quickly a life stops mattering
once it’s stopped.

He doesn’t correct them.
Doesn’t name it.

He stands longer than useful,
the small body cooling in his palm,
and for a moment nothing happens.

The river moves.
The city moves.

His prayer catches,
and he almost lets the bird go as it is—
another thing carried off,
another failure folded into the day.

Then a shudder.
Not triumph.
Not certainty.

The bird tears itself free,
alive in the way that costs.

It flies badly.
It flies anyway.

No one claps.
No one repents.

The boys are bored.


---

The hearth refuses him.

Cold stone, soaked wood,
the damp that never leaves.

He blows on an ember until his head swims.
Ash in his beard.
He curses once.

This is the part they won’t paint:
the waiting,
the fear that God has decided
not to answer today.

A hazel branch, thin as a rib,
snapped from the hedge because there’s nothing else.

He presses too hard,
nearly smothers the ember.

Smoke.
More smoke.

Then—against sense—
a bite of flame.
Small. Ungrateful.
Demanding.

The room doesn’t rejoice.
It thaws.

A child’s teeth stop rattling.
Hands come free.

The fire could still die.
They know.


---

The bell hangs crooked,
rust eating the lip.

There are louder sounds:
buses grinding gears,
men shouting through drink,
music bleeding from doorways
that won’t open again.

He strikes the bell once.

It isn’t beautiful.
It doesn’t carry.

Someone laughs.
Someone swears.
Most don’t turn.

The sound frays,
caught in stone, swallowed by glass
not built for listening.

He doesn’t strike it again.

He lets the quiet answer.

Much later, one woman pauses—
not because she understands,
but because she’s tired
and the noise stopped.


---

The ring is gone.

Not misplaced—
thrown away,
weighted with fear,
dropped where stories rot.

The river is high.
Green-dark.
Unimpressed.

He casts the net twice.

Nothing.

Cold climbs his legs,
and doubt speaks:
you look foolish,
you always have.

On the third pull, a fish—
common, slick, fighting
for a life that doesn’t care.

Inside it, the ring.
Bent.
Marked.

He doesn’t lift it.
Doesn’t explain.

He hands it back,
wet and silent,
like returning something that should never
have been hidden.

The river keeps moving.


---

And the man himself—
no emblem, no miracle-machine—
just a bishop arguing with weather,
with councils,
with hunger that doesn’t care about prayer.

He doesn’t redeem Scotland.
He doesn’t excuse it.

He stands in it:
by rivers carrying waste,
in streets that spend the poor quickly,
under stones that remember belief
better than we do.

This is the long after:
when faith is habit without comfort,
when the fire needs watching,
when the bell sounds wrong,
when what was lost should stay lost.

Still, the work is done.

Not cleanly.
Not completely.

And not because anyone deserves it.

Because something—
call it God if you must—
keeps answering,
even when the answer
changes nothing we can see.

-

Written in conversation with the legends of St. Mungo.