I\'m walking through a titan’s green cathedral;
Giant trunks ascending to a vault
Of frescoed sunlight, sifting through
A canopy of softly singing leaves.
A summer’s haze of pollen and of dust
Enchants the tranquil chamber of this nave,
Betraying passage of the breeze like
Rising incense dancing.
I am suffused with hum of sacred silence,
But from my belly I begin to feel
A tide -
A rising wave, torrential spout of laughter,
And of tears.
-
Oracular geometry
Spread out upon the pitted top
Of seer’s Tarot table.
The room is hung with silver drapes,
And silver drapes the sagging neck of
Ancient, sulfurous, eyes-abstracted
Crone.
The cards, in color, place, orientation
Read to her a telling of the
Future, of things yet to come, and
Hidden truths within the pulsing
Viscera of riddles.
I saw her once from curiosity:
Behind a storefront’s fizzing neon glare
I sought a seeing from Madame du Lac,
With painted face and cigarette-stained
Hands,
And with those fingers did she deftly prod
The cards into a mystical position…
She muttered in the act of bending low,
Her cataracted eyes half-blinded by
Infinite web of probabilities.
-
I cry for her, within this vast
Basilica of instant-living things;
I lean my head against a tangled trunk
And laugh, in celebration of
The present moment’s certain mystery.