I. God
We talk around The Word
by building baroque barricades
on the edges of the Known,
and pouring pails of paint into the pit.
II. Ground
The clatter and clank
of burnished bronze feet
create a quaking, comforting rhythm.
III. Mind
Every echo
is its own reply:
an aberration
on the surface,
a mutation
of Intention.
Stories are Ghosts and whispers
from the margins of the mind.
These fragments misremembered,
organic, unrefined,
are soon turned into images
and narratives designed
to make our lives seem simple,
well-ordered, and divined.
But when we return to Silence
we will surely find
that our souls are truly welcome
in the margins of the mind.
The world has not been still
since the stirring of the Unmoved Mover
for when The Ground of Being shook,
none could remain upright.
When the sacrifice was presented,
Its mere presence was resented
as a disturber of the peace
to be treated with disdain.
That which was most Sacred
was branded most Profane.
But if an offering consecrated
lost, broken, desecrated
could find the strength to rise
rise and walk again,
things have fundamentally shifted
and will never be the same.
The Sacred has bent, not broken,
and refined the Profane.
Now we, an infant nation,
to explain our salvation
display his humiliation
in chains around our necks;
a gesture that some call masochistic
and others call insane
for they see a vision Sacred
being carved in the Profane.
The three tiers have collapsed together
From barriers made free
and to separate them anew
is misguided piety.
The curtain is torn, the altar exposed!
Nothing can be the same,
not after this collision
of the Sacred and Profane.
Were it not for the novel Silence by Shusaku Endo, this poem probably wouldn’t exist. It is an amazing novel that everyone should read.
Musings of a Lazy Writer 