It gives—and she accepts a proffered hand
to walk towards the darkness, sanctified,
boasting of a virgin blackness yet to
feel the violation of earthly light,
but glowing with the whiteness of a dream
and suffused with the gleam of timelessness.
Behind the lattice screen she hears the song
of sisters rising, and your voice among
the sisters rising to a pitch of perfect peace
to dwell among the elevated vaults
built to crown the fullness of eternal
light, where stones resound to the song of child.
On this side of the veil ontology
of grace leaves behind a pale and blemished
face staring like some mute, enchanted child
as time turns into space. Seem becomes real;
the possibility of transfigured
being is now itself transfigured.
The body, in defiance turns, asserts
itself in memories of sweat and flesh,
steals itself to watch over the alone
buried deep in earthen vessels, weathered
and cracked by the malevolence of time.
The blood beats against skin, unrepentant.
She sees the life in death and death in life,
transcendence in the here, not some other
space; the beyond is in the human sphere,
on this side of the veil. Let the blood sing
louder than the choir of brides praying out
their souls from a broken dialectic.