Temple Cone-II
Offertory
The emerald tree boa doesn’t long for the moth’s wings.
The camel accepts that it cannot hunt squid in the depths.
Only man desires to be otherwise, to rewrite creation’s score.
If you were to paint nothing but turkey buzzards feasting
On road-kill, you would stand closer to God. You must believe
He loves those bare, scalded heads, how they root about.
Such is the love that drove Leonardo to dig up cadavers,
To chart rivers of muscle, forests of tendon, caverns of bone.
Botticelli’s Venus proclaims the body’s alien, unyielding beauty.
But to inspect our own hearts and find them, like Blake’s rose,
Devoured by worms—wouldn’t we turn from such thoughts,
Build warplanes, skyscrapers, and dams, and scorch the ground?
When the president appears on television, dogs howl in the kitchen,
Madmen howl in their rooms, murderers howl from death row,
Storm winds howl, and a howling city of misery sinks into a swamp.
So when the muzzein calls from the minaret for prayer, let us go.
When the priest raises the communion, though we are sinful, let us go.
When the burnt child begins asking for water at 3 am, let us go.
The emerald tree boa doesn’t long for the moth’s wings.
The camel accepts that it cannot hunt squid in the depths.
Only man desires to be otherwise, to rewrite creation’s score.
If you were to paint nothing but turkey buzzards feasting
On road-kill, you would stand closer to God. You must believe
He loves those bare, scalded heads, how they root about.
Such is the love that drove Leonardo to dig up cadavers,
To chart rivers of muscle, forests of tendon, caverns of bone.
Botticelli’s Venus proclaims the body’s alien, unyielding beauty.
But to inspect our own hearts and find them, like Blake’s rose,
Devoured by worms—wouldn’t we turn from such thoughts,
Build warplanes, skyscrapers, and dams, and scorch the ground?
When the president appears on television, dogs howl in the kitchen,
Madmen howl in their rooms, murderers howl from death row,
Storm winds howl, and a howling city of misery sinks into a swamp.
So when the muzzein calls from the minaret for prayer, let us go.
When the priest raises the communion, though we are sinful, let us go.
When the burnt child begins asking for water at 3 am, let us go.
