I prefer the kind of spirituality
Which harbours no intention
To make me feel small
Or subject to the judgment of others
Not even gods
Just as I have no desire
To judge anyone
Not even myself
A condition
Which I am ever on the path
Of unlearning
I enter a cathedral
As if into warped space
Not warped as a physicist might think
But as in how a mystic might think
That is, a spiritual space or dimension
Bent, folded and manipulated
To conform to a specific configuration
Long ago transcribed into books
From collective memories
Predating written language
Aside from a certain wonder
At the passion and dedication
To the exquisite expression
Of humanity’s greater achievements
In art and architecture
A cathedral reminds me
Of the power of group thinking
For both good and ill
How this can become a tight leash
On an individual whose spirit
Simply refuses to conform
But it also reminds me
Of the exultant satisfaction
I experienced
When I finally broke the leash
Chose my own path
And found my way to a spiritual space
Which conformed to me
Not that I am without
My own warped sense of spiritual dimension
But the distortion is familiar to me
Has meaning for me
And brings me to a place of peace
Raised beneath
Steeples and spires
Kneeling Sitting Standing
In pews row on row
First Holy Communion
Confirmation
Confession
Ash Wednesday
Palm Sunday
Incense and palm leaves
Midnight Mass
Now another confession:
Never a believer
Earliest memories
Saying what was expected
Doing what was expected
Praying aloud the lie on my lips
Though there were Pastors
Two at least
Who made as much
A philosophy of sermon
As theology
Who bespoke love
And compassion
Forgiveness
And kindness
As if these were as important
As believing in Father, Son and Holy Ghost
I kept the compassionate love
Discarded the trinity
And for a long while
Wanted nothing to do
With religion
Or the religious
Until I finally saw
The strength faith gives my mother
Courage, resilience, tenacity
Powered by compassion, love and kindness
All in God’s name
Now I understand
Something about the nature of goodness
And the many paths we may travel
To bring ourselves to the love
Which is its foundation
These many lines
Of thought
Of action
Of possibility
Some converging
Some parallel
Some intersecting
A disorder
Of subtler
Orders
Patterns
Within patterns
Within a cross-section
Of a whole
Imperceptible
Step back
And back again
To reveal the whole
With its harmony of line
I am having
High-order, ill-mannered thoughts
Inconvenient truths
As the saying goes
Understatement that it is
And I have always
Wondered why
Understatement
Doesn’t have a better word
Overstatement has
Hyperbole
Pointed overstatement
An extraordinary word
Understatement
Seems so…
Well
Understated
But I’m lying
Not about understatement
I cannot overstate it
I cannot be hyperbolic
About understatement or lying
But I digress
I dissociate
Because I am lying
About having these
Thoughts
I’m not having them
I mean that emphatically
Which is also a better word
Than understatement
And still I digress
Dissociate
Dis-associate
Because I also most emphatically
Do not want to have them
So I digress
Again
Diverge
Obsess about other thoughts
Any other thoughts
Or no thoughts at all
Even better
Any activity which annihilates
Thought
Television
Computer games
Hours-long arguments
On social media
Irony
Another great word
A device used properly
Only as a hammer on an anvil
I have arguments
About high-order, ill-mannered thoughts
To avoid thinking about
A particular set of high-order, ill-mannered thoughts
But I digress
From my digression
Which speaks to the power
Of dissociation
I dis-associate
From dissociation
But those thoughts
I don’t want to have
They want to be had
They want to be thought
And they’re knocking at the door
Pounding at it really
Against the big metal door
Protecting my consciousness
Like a hammer on an anvil
Even now
I am buttressing the door
Keeping it shut
As it reverberates
I desperately want
To turn on the telly
Play a game
Or open Facebook
Stolen land
Stolen lives
Stolen dreams
Stolen hearts
Stolen culture
Stolen children
Stolen justice
Stolen time
Stolen generations
Thieves unrepentant
In the dream
I entered a cavernous space
Light streamed in through windows
Set in an impossibly high wall
It curved
All around me
The inner workings
The floor boards
I almost expected to see
Dali and a squadron of flying cats
So odd a place this was
Until I realized
It was me
I was inside myself
The walls and ceiling
Were my own skin
Seen from the inside
Pipes and beams my bones
But inside
Where my consciousness
Now found itself
Was a vast cavern
Of emptiness
A fear gripped me
That all I had ever been
Was a sometimes pretty
But entirely hollow
Vessel
I wept
Cried out
Tried to shake out the dream
And wake up
Until…
I smelled the rain in the air
Heard the droplets
Tapping the leaves
Outside my window
Felt the cool of the night…
On my body
Outside the vessel
Palpating it
To see if there was any truth
To the hollowness
None that I could feel
“But you know you are”
Came a voice
From deep inside
Ringing with echoes
The fear, again
The tears, again
And a sorrow, full
As the cavern
Was hollow
Then another voice spoke
With the sibilant promise
Of a whisper in my ear
“A hollowness waiting
To be filled”
An ornate lamp hangs
In a gentle place
There to illuminate
When darkness falls
A beautiful ornament
In the clear light of day
Would create a spectacle
In the dim hues of night
And now I wish
I had seen this room
Bathed in the prismatic glow
Which gives shape to the dark
Every culture
Every person
Knows beauty
In their own way
I remind myself
Try to find
Beauty’s heart
In every way
That is the place
Where we are all one
That is the place
From which flows love
Geometries of Euclidean beings
Dominate the irregular perfections
Of organic patterns
And I
A lover of both
Math and nature
Am left unsure
Which is
The greater beauty
Is such judgment
Even necessary
Or wise
After all
Beauty itself
Is the construct
Of an eye
And a mind
Who am I to say
What you should find
Beautiful
Pix to Words 