Day 3 of 30: Our GloPoWriMo 2019 prompt for today is to write a poem that takes time.
"Wood and Stone"
My name in German means "pure"
I was born this way to a mother
of alabaster skin
and a father who wore
the deacon's suit
Tiny girl on the church pew,
I sat and listened, an
eager spy
with her ear to the
door of God.
Everything was wooden then
Pulsing with the afterlife of trees --
The church bench, the pulpit,
The doorway, and even
The doorknob,
Smooth and painted black.
But then, the blaze:
Orange tongues
Licking away faith
Scorching arms
Wrapped around all that
The carpenter made
In the end, nothing left
But cinders.
The only thing holy, then,
Was stone.
I am now the pilgrim god-seeker,
The gypsy, the wandering hobo.
The Temple of Artemis, Ephesus
The Cididel of Machu Pichu, Peru.
The Pyramids of Giza, Cairo
The Columns of Medusa, Istanbul
The Monastery at Petra, Jordan
The Ruins at Chichén Itzá, Mexico
The Tiawanaku Temple of the Sun, Bolivia
The Ring of Stones, Stonehenge
Oh, Greeks, Oh Romans
Oh Incas, Oh Pharaohs,
Oh Nabateans,
Oh, Mayans, Oh Aymara
Oh, Druids.
Your cold stones are beautiful, but silent
As my grandfather's gravestone.
The face of God?
It is not in wood.
It is not in stone.
The divine is the alabaster skin of my living mother,
The breath of my aging father,
The deep and generous filigree of roots
Under the ground
Of the tree outside my window
And the leaves upturned to
Sky.
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