What of our offerings, the beautiful,
and the profane? We come together
at this altar, this place of desire
and peril, seeking, saving, holding
dear the wounds and roses we have gathered.

There are prayers for illumination,
another for the falling of a veil.
We remember a soft inflection
that brings a river of regret,
a certain shade of blue, a cornflower

glance across an infinite prairie.
We bear them up, our own relics,
the mundane, the nearly grand,
the hoped for, the abandoned.
These are our moments, pale petals

of open flesh we tender over
fraught waters. Often it is a cast
of light or a scent of limes and tallow
that brings us to our knees, some snare
that falls into our path and conjures

an hour when we rested in the hand
of mercy. There now, we find a way
to sleep and dream these things,
that we might breathe and endure
in this thin and unforgiving air.

This was very beautiful.  I especially liked
.

Thanks, Moskowitz

a psalm of truth and grace, sung from the deepest place within a human soul, and sung clearly, and with power, so that light has been divided from darkness, and things wounded and broken can find new hope to heal...

michael

It's rare that a poem succeeds in taking on the human condition -- or am I completely off, here.  You have a good central metaphor in the ritual of communion, and you deviate from it so that it doesn't get tired carrying all that weight.

Thank you alll for your most kind words!
take care~dale

dear Dax----I am so glad you are in the world...

michael

The picture with this poem on your website is beautiful. Everyone should view it.
The traditional voice of this poem is great. Michael's right. Psalm is a good word; more comfort in this for me than any vespers prayer I ever said.