burning churches

[[ I have stopped to watch big churches burn -- it's very dramatic -- but words do double duty here. What is most important in a church -- what they carry out of a burning church -- is the art and the records. Churches are the local warehouses of time and beauty. Something like that. ]]

I have stopped
to watch
your churches burn.

What you carry
out from churches
filled with fire

is art -- religion
of religions,
and the only true --

a trap for frisson,
how it feels
along our nerves,

art and history,
a trace of time
in curled ink,

the word on page,
a jar of you
in vinegar

to evidence that
you were born,
your mother born,

and time sleeps
in a pile
of local stone.