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!”