pastel, Odilon Redon

Within architecture of hewn stone and
colored glass, where well-tuned words
         are whispered
into oracle’s ears, we skim on slippered
feet. Beneath a soot-stained arch we
         fetish
penny candles and incense sticks, and ache
for rapture in the sistrum jangle and
cobalt gloom of our creation. Higher
still, at the tree-line, standing on vertical
strata and pine needles, firm on the crust
of mystery and certain of it—we
shout to God, and ever the voice we hear,
as it answers and repeats, we know only
as our own.