“Are you in some order of distinction?”

asks the Queen of us, the city councillors;

she, knowing that scars of strife and wars

are really ruddy drops of grace, intinction

from the chalice, the blood of public life.

And me the one she stops before, the pause

(I am white-haired, distinguished without cause)

the thought pops in her mind - she drum, me fife!

A single narrative begins to speak.

Beneath, unmentioned movements pass between;

she knows a commonality unseen:

the church, the crown alert, the other seeks.

God made us such in heaven’s gracious plan

Echoes! Who she is, and who, please God, I am.

 

This goes back to having actually met the Queen, who stopped in front of me and asked the question; prompted I am saying by an unspoken sense of what shall I say, "priesthood"?