Wave of the priestly hand,
and the lights slowly dim.
“Sin,” he says, “is darkness,
though what seems so dark
to us is but a shadow
of the greater gloom
we’re too naive to see.
Its waters close round,
and the grace we breathe
like air departs as we drown.”
His words weary me.
I don’t need a shadow play
to conjure up the murk
ten thousand meters
from the sun’s quickening heat.
For years, I’ve made my home
in hollows of deceptive peace
and unrelenting heaviness,
where sight confirms blindness
and loss is the only trace of love—
where gauzy creatures frail
as dreams feed on the bright
world’s leavings while others
gaunt and ravening ensnare
the innocent and unwary.
Yet even these find a way,
like viper-stung Eurydice,
to reconcile with suffering
and, in that unyielding night,
cast a cold and beautiful light.