Why Cannot Day? What Cannot Night?

Insensible day dawns blind,

Seeing but with eyes,

Reducing the infinite to only.

Transcendent grace,

Made vulgar by this sun,

Shuns the daylight,

Illicit but to darkened eyes,

And therein sanctified.

In a small cupboard

Beneath the teacher’s desk

Lies hidden an image;

Profane and sacred,

Male and female,

Nude and clothed.

She is the Madonna,

All compassion and soul.

He is a Greek God,

All muscles and naked sex.

They together are utterly desirable.

The teacher must not find this image.

She will not understand.

I spend my days in fear.

Will I be discovered?

One day a spiteful fellow student

Will fling open the cupboard door,

The teacher will smile a knowing smile,

And all eyes will turn to me,

Undefendable.

That holy relic will be destroyed,

And I will be empty,

Unwelcome in the light.

It is to be feared above all else.

I cannot see beyond this,

Nor shall I,

Until the door is opened,

And that sacred center, ripped out,

Is trampled under unfeeling feet.

Then untouchable,

In shadow and stillness,

The night will encircle shattered and muddied fragments.

So am I delivered to the deepest darkness,

Broken open beyond bearing,

Abandoned to empty midnight,

And lost wandering.

The wilderness breathes its silence,

Stillness calls to stillness,

And leads me from the raging storm

To the calm center.

From this forsaken eye

A wounded vision

Sees empty midnight,

Brimming with unexpected wonders.

A sky once holding but one garish light,

Now is crammed with unnumbered suns,

Filling the heavens, every inch.

The infinite offers up the hem of its garment,

An invitation to touch and be healed,

To touch and become infinite also,

To reach,

And hope,

And come alive again,

A latter day Lazarus,

Miraculous and loved,

Insensible to fear and hate,

Seeing only the beloved,

Standing where the stone once stood,

And calling me by my name.