Oh, it is a darkness, disillusionment,
but also I am jettisoned
from poverty like gold
into the flaming zeal of the believing,
the fiery transcendence of the gods
had by the meek and lowly,
the trodden, the footpath travellers
as nakedly evident as God Himself,
as a cloud of light, an Exile, a Path,
the Mercy of tolerance, the wisdom of the kind,
the forbearing delicacy of refinement,
all of these
nothing when Martyrdom
proceeds central out of the heart,
uttered praiseworthy from lips
blue from the cold of sacrifice,
oppressed by Time, and lost
only in the love that is of all.
10/21/2016
West Vancouver