The Spirit Vacuum

Grail Maiden: Public Domain Image by Arthur Rackham

Exploitive conceptualization spurned the many,

and molded clay crystallized

one’s internalized role in obscuring truth

into illuminations on one’s existence

Borne witness to

blood on the altar, in rapture

subject to confirmation bias

Remember when we wondered astray?

From stately sanctuaries, ominously hanging crosses

symmetrical in third dimensions,

past the rooms where we avoided Sunday School,

and fellowship hall with checkered tile floors,

dodging old men in suits while displaying

fundamental forms of delinquency, foreshadowing

re-examinations and unwelcome assertions

Senses of obligation and duty, under development

disrupted – remained unengaged,

yet instinctually ingrained with rusted-out relics,

unfulfilled yet colored through the prism

of their projected worldview,

into the spirit vacuum,

born of isolation, inoculation, or indoctrination

Enlightenment grew to be formless and prescient –  beyond

its call and spurning commonly identifiable text,

unmotivated and unmoved, redefined

into chasms revealed beyond comfort or convenience

A trace beyond deliberate, unveiling like nature

reclaiming its basis over severing generations

in guided engagement,

offering virtual telepathy unwarranted,

revealing ranges of emotion in sound

unparalleled within the depths of its grooves,

coming to refine this presence without attempting to corral an origin

Matt Mauldin
5/2017
Santa Barbara, CA

Appears in Patterns of Reconciliation