Religious Experience

The sky is less clouded than my conscience

As I weave my way down hollow city streets

Steeples surround the city square

Affixed with crucifixes

I peer at empty pews

Smiling beneath stained glass

But turn away

Opting, instead of guilt, for grass

Beneath my tired feet.

I pass over asphalt, across glittering gravel

With liberating lightness I allow my feet to choose their path

Each step moves broken rocks into

Singing symphonies of forgotten songs

Steeples of moss-covered cliffs adorn hallowed hills

Wearing regal robes of frosted sage

And ochre flowers

Holy water drips down crooked crags

While the wind whispers humbling hymns into my eager ear.

Thick carpeted aisles betwixt painted pews

Are replaced by sequined quilts of autumn colors

Blanketing abounding breasts, pointing, with their aged beauty

Into the azure blue sky.

Twisted branches of yucca plants hold

Dried caskets of shaking seeds

Singing songs of rattler’s tails

When shook by blowing breeze

White moths flirt with fleeting winds

Whipping round my naked nape

Why is it amongst these sun-dried mountains,

I learn the meaning of escape?

Trading broken glass for sun-dried grass

Beneath blistered feet and dusty soles

Leaving behind the battleground

For salvation of sickened souls

I am hopeful and humbled

By hopping grasshoppers and rust-red wild flowers

The vision of passing shadows

Over melded mountains melts into my memory

For eternity

Forget the splintered steeples

And their sunlit stained glass

I have found my place of worship

On a mountain pass.