Our Freed To The Altar / Joshua Alan Sturgill
We go out and in from the temple
like blood from the heart, like fingers of wind
through these birches by the stream
And our spirit perfumes the temple,
and the temple purifies our spirit.
How the untethered things long to be at rest!
And the fixed things long to be free!
— liturgy is an exchange, a bartering
of glory for glory, of breath for breath.
We go in and out from our breath.
Breathed into, we taste the other’s prayer.
And breath is drawn out of us by Love Unseen.
I bring the bread of dying, and You
the wine of immortality — neither is unneeded:
We never eat without the drink
that makes the meal complete. We go
to the heart of the Temple of the Heart
and fasten our freedom to the Altar. There, we pledge
our exchange: breath, feast, liturgy.
Apocalypse of self to Self
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