My god,

what are you?

Why do you

seem to tread

in the memory

and experiences of

so many

who look back,

and look forward,

and also look inside?

 

You exist

as the distant

ideal of Plato

and as the thunderous

judge of antiquity,

who,

in some unknown realm,

will make

all the pain

and travesty

of life

seem right,

or just,

or fair.

 

You are,

apparently,

in the world as spirit,

yet not fleshly

in any corporeal way.

There is no touch nor sight

as evidence of presence:

you are ineffable and

a mystery,

or so the language goes.

 

 

You are the cause

championed by

theologians,

priests

and preachers,

who shape you

eloquently

into precepts

and neat systems

of control,

rectification

and priviledge.

 

I have heard that

hope is embodied

in your form

and presence,

or is it merely

the silent

dull ache

of creatures,

who,

looking to the sky,

want sense

in the vacuum

of senselessness?

 

We owe you

devotion

and fulsome praise,

so the holy books

say,

in this deft turn

of logic

in which the human,

the so-called peak of creation,

is somehow less,

as you are more.

 

In your omniscience

and omnipresence,

we are told you

see with your

infinite lens,

see into all things

temporal and

eternal.

But do you see into

the groanings

and the sighs

of the suffering ones

who you apparently

care for

and protect

as Master of the Universe?

 

My god, the world

is in your shadow.

Or are you the shadow

of the world,

reflecting,

with total clarity,

the sharp cutting

edge of death

that severs us

from eternity,

from the place,

we are told,

where you reign?

 

20/9/2015