All our lives, we're
commanded:
listen
well, read
close, and pay
attention;
recitation
of creeds and
ringing
of bells is
tantamount
to consecration.
But then,
one day,
we may slump
in the pew—
and, nodding-
off, dream
our revelation:
that through the raw
ecstasy
of awe
and of terror
may sluice
rarer knowledge
of the vulgar
and the workaday;
through gaps
in the soothing,
child-like echolalia
of the mass,
may pour forth
both the infinite river
and infinitesimal
vessel of salvation.
Now,
whether the next
great abyss
we fall into
be our hell
or our heaven—
who really cares?
As long as it
takes us somewhere
new.
