Sacred
SACRED
At a farewell dinner I told my new friends
on the El Camino Real that I had been married before
They said the church works hard to discourage divorce
but many live separate and call it OK
Angry and ashamed for the “peoples of the book”
smacking each other with the blood-laden suffering of
original sin, the oft violent triumph of faith over truth,
I said your hierarchy is wrong, they’ve got no idea,
have no wives, have no children, have no participation no
grounded experiences in the simple, in the sacred that are
the cycles of life
Their faces went flat, as if the structures of their skulls
had been suddenly altered by an invisible cleaver that
arrived unannounced did inexorable damage, disappeared
without trace, leaving silence behind in the absence of blood
I’m not bitter, I said replacing my axe in a tough leather
sheath concealed by a smile with a razor-sharp edge
My new wife is Cynthia, I have my own moon!
And unlike you mortals, I see all of her curves, all of her
surface and her hidden recesses My moon has red lips that
are soft as a dream and she’s the light that I’ll use for the
rest of my life
Somehow without noses, they breathed once again
and with our eyes open wider, we watched the Polynesian
dancers whose muscular grace and relentless percussion,
chants, supplications and swaying incantations, connected
to the sacred
in all of the oceans, in all of the mountains
in all of the forests, in all of the sky
in all of our instinct, to give birth and nurture
in all of the wonder that is God manifested
in all that we are when we are willing to see
Finally I said: “Out on the hill, at the end of
a dirt road, beyond solemn temples, where scriptures
and sermons offer blood and salvation, covenants and prophets
to the poor, to the greedy, to the fearful, to the enslaved, there’s
a clearing in the forest where the rocks meet the sea, where miraculous
phenomena inspire holy questions, make us buoyant and hopeful
joyously expectant, centered and calm
Do yourself a favor and go to that place
I’ll meet you there!”
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