“Disappearances” by Hugh Mitchell

His personal self returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source
… he disappears into the light.                         The Upanishads

I’ve gone to inhabit the darkness
dressed in bright colors.
 
I move into the unknown future
known only to those
who do not have a name
for they live beyond all names
in the place that is no place.
 
What is this tomb and tumulus
after the priests vanished
and the congregants strayed, starved, fled?
The golden altars were looted long ago
and the temple stripped of Torah and Cross.
 
What is this place
where gushing rivers have dried
and mountain glaciers disappeared
from the blaze and sun which never stops
or stoops to pity

and the only hope is found
beyond the reality of bombs and rubble
as we move from holy temple grounds
into dry wind from desert mountains
to the place of no wind at all
or life beyond cold stars
where even the stars no longer have a name?

Hugh Mitchell
147 Hillside Ave
Rochester, N.Y.  14610                  20140601

Tags: Hugh Mitchell, Poetry