... (II)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMyRfIpNvPs&ab_channel=MosesSumney

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                I

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He knelt, before the altar - 

A wall of candles, flickering

Quietly

Beneath the tall spires and arches,

Stained glass, gothic

Topographies,

Acoustics

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That all about, were the surroundings

That became the encircling of the cathedral.

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                II

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It’s hard to know god. I think

It’s arrogant

To even profess to know, but those buildings

Were intended, 

Built,

With a very specific purpose:

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The Valhallan halls,

The geometric pyramids, the wooded

Dancing grounds, 

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The tall, tessellar rings

Of enormous standing stones.

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                III

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Such places were designed

As reflections of divinity - 

To mirror the composites

Of that which is divine:

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The spinning patterns that encompass the stars;

The universe, in a Fibonacci sequence;

In the brittle, cellular structures

Of an autumn-fallen

Oak-leaf;

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In the resonance and thunder

Of a tempestuous, sudden storm;

In the utero replication

That engenders life 

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Before its born.

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                IV

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He wasn’t there, kneeling, before those candles

Because he wanted to commune

With his long beloved dead; he wasn’t there

To transact with heaven - to ascertain

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His salvation, secure absolution,

To flagellate before dogma,

To stand as Simeon

Upon the style.

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                V

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He was there, because such places held proximity

To holiness - to sainthood, sanctity, to that which exists

Eternal - long after he would depart

And long before he'd even arrived.

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VI

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Many like him,

In many an age, had stood before their own

Various altars, had crafted their own

Various sublimities - their Nightingales

And Tintern Abbeys - as iterations 

And reflections

Of all of such proximities

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To all of more and the same.

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                VII

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God, can be called by many names - 

Many faces that encompass the die - 

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Differentiation

Semantic

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And yet all as designations 

That aspire to ascertaining 

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An understanding of the divine.

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VIII

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For something so indescribable

So as to defy the imagination,

It is the task of artists 

And architects - 

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The ordination of the poet -

To attempt that which is impossible

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And descry words to describe the divine.

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IX

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Such, was then his reason;

Such was why he was there:

Bowed before 

A wall of candles

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In vigil, and in prayer.

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