And Don’t Let Gilding Trick You

And Don’t Let Gilding Trick You

The great ones come to us in rock:  the law
At Moses’ side, the wounds in marble, slight,
White holes in marble in la Pietà
Of Jesus and the Virgin, and that tight
Black thing, the kaabaa.  All of them, these three,
This trinity of weightiness, want us
To carry them around on bended knee.
They are a sort of deuterium pus
Made solid in our hearts, made to explode
Our threatened selfhood, made to overwhelm.
They want pollution from their dusty code
To crush our essence in its fleshy realm.
..The Buddha, even, comes in hard, carved stone.
    It’s only heaviness they all condone.