CONTEMPLATION

Where the fire? Where the flames?
Where the serried ranks of saints?
This craggy gorge engulfing me
Is dark as smoke in which the cries
Of martyrs shake the stars
I cannot see.
Nor ever will, until they fall
And all
Their tears dissolve the rock
From which our hearts are made.
Lying here I fear
The smile I'll see upon that face
When, with a bloody axe raised high,
The life I love is shorn away,
And all that's left is endless space
Where every light's burnt out.