a pilgrimage

It's been a long, tiring week at work, so I'm offering another poem instead of an essay.

A Pilgrimage

The Spirit of God
called an old man
in Etheopia
to carve Coptic churches, alone,
into the rocks
of a distant mountain.

Perhaps
these temple-caves being carved
are like arks
that are being readied
for an ominous, unwritten destiny,
an Armageddon
that will drive Christians
to find shelter in remote altitudes.

Or, perhaps,
the destinies of these temple-caves
are intended
by God
to be blank and pure
until they are claimed
by the sundry few
who are driven to them
for sundry reasons.

Or, perhaps,
a part of God's Spirit
was feeling pinched
and required room to breathe
by communing with an old man
whose spirit
is now resonating
with a solitude
only found among distant rocks
carved into the ancient, reverent form.

Longing for that solitude,
and longing for that communion,
I let my spirit travel
on the wings
of imagination and yearning
to one of these unclaimed,
empty, rock-hewn churches
to rest.

There, I found solace
in its dust, wind and shadows.