Tombs For Gods Who Once Spoke
Temples, churches, mosques,
you great piles of stones
gathered against entropy,
the fruits of hard labour,
gathering moss in the rain and
reaching, always reaching
high to poke the underbelly
of heaven.
In all my travels, in all
the steps I’ve climbed
and candle-lit interiors,
heavy with incense and ghee,
I’ve bowed into,
in all the reverent silent spaces
I’ve hushed through,
I’ve heard only this:
‘We are a people who once knew something,
who once understood and had revelation.
And in high excitement
at our divine selection and elevated status
we built these tombs for
the gods who once spoke,
and have since heard
nothing.’
A friend of mine is travelling, and got me thinking about some of the ‘holy places’ I have visited across the world… many of which just have that sense of a room that someone has just left. And sometimes I wonder that’s what temple-building does. God just doesn’t like enclosed spaces; I guess she’s claustrophobic.