Peering at shadows

through the doorway

of absolutes, tilting our view

between vacant idols

propped up on the  threshold

of the ‘horror vacui’,

empty eternities lay behind

pealing pigments on the walls

of smooth-faced stone

in shadowy inner sanctums.

*

Man derives his creeds

from mere fragments, which

he supposes to have understood;

a mote suspended in light

landing on a pellicle in the mind

frames a fragmentary truth

in the core of his experience

that nonetheless suffices for him

to retain as the commensurate

surrogate for the vastness

he is unable to grasp.

Beyond our unsifted axioms

lie revelations impenetrable

to our narrow purview,

eliciting an inconsolable sense

in the divided mind of man,

of being at odds, prescience tangled

in the veil of Illusion,

a reflexive dread of holiness

thorning inexplicably

in the torpid soul,

fear and need pulling against

loss of the shell that surrounds

an empty center,

mind floating in blackness,

erratic and vacillating,

the unbound soul at once

enervated and exhilarated

in the encircling presence

of harsh unerring summits.

These austere manifestations

held in diamond light,

loom remote, eternally sacred,

blissful, dangerous.