Alien Piety

                Alien Piety

Religion comes to me in little waves

Or more like ripples on the warming sea

Around my thoughts and pulsing nerves.  The caves

And sounding feelings that are really me

Along this coastal tide refuse the hints

These riffles whisper in their brackish hush.

Instead I want the deep subconscious tints

That come from grottoes, caverns and the gush

From under seabed, heated fountain vents.

There truths in pinnacles grow upward, life

Forms (dreams) surge high from these ocean floor rents,

Forms waft like visions on a seer’s knife.

  And it is this and these that I prefer

    To liturgies of frankincense and myrrh.