what of these chapels
perilous or not
that were built
on the charred bodies
of women –
chapels that harnessed and yoked
the prayers of the earth
in service of a sky god
that knew nothing
of women like volcanoes
who burned with the making of mountains
long before these insipid fires
licked them lifeless –
but prayers remember their makers
remember their hips and feet
dust on the temple floors,
remember lips that curve and hum
hands that hold and cup
and plant prayers
like a seed
like a hope
like a forgiveness.
the roof of the chapel sags now
with the deadweight of your sky god
grown fat on stolen harvests
and pillaged wealth.
they will fall
these temporary erections
to a god who never came.
even when people were bought and sold,
tortured, left tongueless in his name,
even then he never came.
never smited or punished
never said not in my name
will you destroy my creation.
and when the meek defended
their inherited earth –
the walls shook
with the laughter of the sky god
as they were trodden underfoot
paving new roads to the west
with the bodies of heathens.
and don’t come to me
with you taming the savages
we cleansed the earth bullshit –
human sacrifice still exists
in the exalted marble halls
of corporate capitalism,
a price per kilometer
to drop a mine shaft in africa
plummet to the centre
paid for in human lives –
a collateral damage expected
but rarely owned.
sometimes late nights
or perhaps over tea
the loose tongues
of retired mine engineers
name the price
speak the horror
that weighs their souls
heavy
and what it really means
to the miners on shift
to be worth your weight in gold.
this has been our perilous chapter
since the first witch was drowned
by the light of a waning moon.
burned, hands bound and naked
in the village square, by priests
who feared not the wrath of god
but the scorching touch of the goddess
that beat her drum in the heart
of every woman,
the gods of stone and river and tree
that would take their priestly promise
of eternal stagnation and let them rot
body and soul devoured by hungry soil
to live again animal, mineral, vegetable
enlivened by that which always was
eternal.
what then of human endeavour
if all that we become is a handful of worms,
some words to feed the birds
and the light that slants
gold through trees
touching iridescent on her wings
or the wild boar
who harrowed the fields
long before we dreamed it.
Linking in to the weekly challenge at Earthweal.
Leave a Reply