Snow
by Lynn Michael Martin
Here stands the temple echoless,
walled by the world’s edge, the horizon
no farther than a tree-row
greyed by snowfall.Ornate with non-ornation,
shrine splendidly unclothed
by images, statuettes, friezes,
and if there is any shape,
it is the stormfronted gargoyle,
spitting sleet and snow;
or the censers, unscented, unglowing,
pouring out smoke, grey on sky,
white on the earth;
or the font curved outward,
bathing all the world
in sleep and mysteries.
Holiness is silence,
and world-pain released
by pure knowing,
all
experienced and become,
washed in and forgotten
in the numbness of the eyes,
and the opening of the eyes.
Gargoyles for the heathen,
censers for gods,
baptism for those who stand
over-earth and under-sky
bathed in the sleep which leads to waking.
Lynn Martin believes that the essence of the universe is joy, and that in poetry there should shine both the earth’s joy and a light from beyond the world.
Photography by Kenneth Godoy