Prayer at Angels Landing

The horizon is cracked and jagged like

God was drawing lines in the sand,

A star-crossed lover at the beach

Ephemeral reminder that They were here,

Once. A remnant.

We are not supposed to be here,

I think. This temple,

All gold and amber towers from which

Prophets and patriarchs observe with

Condor eyes and stubble of dry brush—

Their touch has consecrated the sands,

Too grand and too holy

For my small stature.

Let us pray.

I see you there,

Melting feathers frozen in

Hulking mineral monolith

Molecules bonded without space

Without distance; you,

Encased in singularity, weeping

Iron rusting into sandstone—

I see you and my gorgon gaze makes you

An effigy or an idol or a trinket,

some strange deific geology.

What injustice, what pain,

To freeze liquid into solid,

Force form onto Formless.

What blasphemy!

Touch the stoney robe and listen

It commands

Child,

Cry no blasphemy!

I am stone seeping water

You are skin leaking spirit

We are codex, we are contradiction

We are truth made manifest.

To be bound

(loose and porous)

Is to be divine.