Rituals

 

We tend to get it backwards — first we want

to see, and then we might believe. Light throws

such strange shadows when all the world is haunted

 

with things we don’t know how to see, with facts

we fail to perceive, fusty notions gone

to seed and not worth harvesting, abstractions

 

masquerading as stones. Wanting closes

the eyes of the soul; rituals enact

our awareness of what the body knows.

 

 

© Michael Fleming

Brattleboro, Vermont

March 2023

 

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