Poems March 2010
The shrine
I was taken underground down many flights of stairs
to a room inside the earth lit by a sourceless light
where on a rough-hewn pedestal carved from an ancient tree
a face stared out at me stared past me into Time
someone had made the shrine a woman I thought like me
her grey hair wild unkempt as she worked the wood with gold
to make a precious overlay the shrine a place to kneel
& pray for continuance like a gift another morning came
bringing the chance of rain rain that would wash the earth
clean of the summer’s dust but I cannot forget
the shrine the face the wonderworking hands buried
so deep beneath me in a room in the center of the earth
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 28 Number 7, on page 25
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