Consummate

As doctors

among the sick

and saviors

among sinners

we set fires

in darkness

set on fire every thought

every twist

of dried grass

the season's dead leaves

last season's mould

bark scrap or twig

torn cloth

branch and trunk

facade

structure and
deconstructure

shelter

columns of straw men

favored idol

spotted foal

Asheroth pole

Dead Sea Scroll

monsters lovely

or obscene

human-like and hideous

or all at once
like Ezekiel's god

obsessed with donkey balls

and stallion seed

and soul-slaves,

whatever

we drag from the shadow

of our fears

unknowing
wonder

you and I

unlike the rest

yes

quite unlike all

but the scattered few

we patriots of this landscape
between the setting and the rising

in this twilight

called living--

 

to see what truth is hidden

in knots

and grain
tea-leaves
crossbeams
Trojans
and creeds
to sift old nails
from ashes

and wonder what was built there,
what meaning it once had for someone
when men and beasts and gods were brothers
and women and forests and earth were sisters

long-forgotten lifetimes ago,

or finding none
to delight
in the dance of warmth
on bare limbs
so hot the face tightens
eyes water
brows singe
ginger fingers pinch,

to delight

in those bright tongues

leaping from earth
to lap the firmament
the searing crystals

crackling icily

in fleeting sparks,

laughing like Elijah

at the prophets of Baal
as they scurry
to the nothing
they worship,
to the nothing
they wear,
to the nothing
they inhabit,
weeping for them
as they cut themselves
and crouch with their tinder,
afraid to let the spark loose
on the things
they've come to value
for wrong reasons.

Somewhere they forgot

to transcend is to burn,
consummation
consumes.

11-7-2012