“There is nothing more fundamental than I; all worlds, all beings, are strung upon me like pearls on a single thread.” ~ Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-Gita

PILLAR OF CREATION

St. Ignatius throw away your rosary!
St. Hubble has spilled a million pearls
across the sky,
strung them on the thread of night.

New beads polished bright
dwarfs me under the southern arc of Serpens.

Eagle Nebula, hovering like Shekinah,
spawning a skein of eggs in her galactic draft,
stellar incubator hatches such faith, such astonishment…

Suddenly, something bigger than the galaxies rises,
a column of thunder like muscled fist,
Lord Shiva’s angry erection
pierces the haggling pantheon of sixty million deities
scattering them like marbles
before the shaft of superiority.

Modernity has joined the dark ages.
Observatories are cathedrals, and with my sacred eyes
I worry each giant bead in prayer
between doubtful gazes,
and sleep under a newer testament

end/michael