How Light Takes Shape in a Voluminous World

I used to eat Holy Communion on Sundays.

I stopped that nonsense not long after

I put an end to thumb sucking and began

To meditate and eschew attachment

Like the dry and high-browed adult I was becoming.

We take to any creed because to not do so would be

Closed minded or open minded depending on

Several hard facts of your cultural biases but

Now I ask for your bare-skinned alliance.

I request only greed and goodness.

When I abandoned Buddhism, at the time I could not

Tell mediation from the rosary (but mostly I

Wanted to be violently in love again).

So I attached to him and him to me

And suffered deliberately.

I choose passion over denial, these days –

I still fill my incompleteness with the ways

Of ritual and touch and word like

How light takes shape in a voluminous world;

A woman’s way is not of the Lord.

It is in her ancient nature to desire,

And desire is its very own Tao, or temple.

Just as the haiku that calls on wind, pierce and bone

To speak for that which cuts, breaks and has no home –

Suddenly the soul, a calcified decanter, the first winter rain,

Pours out its cold, hard and immeasurable contents.