I saw the words, their threads.
Saw them weave a blanket in thin air,
Saw the pews filled with naked souls,
Saw the people swaddled
Despite the heat and humid tears.

There was the prayer we always hear
When we humans gather here
To read from wrinkled pages.
There was the sunlight trapped
By windows stained by color and by age.
And there was the slaughtered wonder
Of a life cut short.

They said that God was the first to cry.
They said that science is the what
And religion is the why.
And they said that though He gives
So does he take with brute and sudden force.

I abhor the architecture of death,
The coffins, the crosses,
The dank dens of death.
I abhor the comfort I do not feel,
The fear I’ve never faced.
I abhor the pastor and the psalm,
The tired chants, the supplications
That die before they reach my ears.

Tell me, my fellow mourner,
Why the faith in the beyond?
And you, what of the formula
You promised? Have not the
Centuries sufficed?
I want neither your
Questions nor your answers.

I grow restless. I seek answers.
I am uncertain. I am infinitesimal.
My mind is all I know.
Let me rest, then,
And bask in the gorgeous terror of it all.

Written Monday, July 21, 2014 at 1 PM

In honor of Kate Goldstein, who died on June 14, 2014, in Northern India